Darker Days
by lazerbear7
Summary: Things are starting to go downhill in Arendelle, and are starting to tip over the brink. Actions must be taken to keep the conditions in Arendelle stable, and if things destabilize than more radical actions will have to be taken. This is a continuation of "The Shadow of Ice" another thing by me. T rating.
1. Chapter 1

Bright warm light, loud music, plentiful food and drink, and friendly faces all around. Overall the party might have been very enjoyable for someone who wasn't Nathan. As it was, he was standing in the darkest corner he could find with his arms crossed looking out over the large number of people, feeling very uncomfortable every time he spied someone's eyes lingering just a few seconds too long on him. Each time this happened he felt himself press a little harder into the wall behind him. He could have been down in the crowd, mingling and meeting some of the men that he had fought alongside against Gothel's people, but that wasn't a prospect that really interested him. Most of them had at very least seen him when he had… to say "flipped out" would be an understatement after Gothel died. He figured that most of them would be hesitant to talk to him, a first impression of being the most dangerous person on the battlefield wasn't the greatest to draw in new friends

A familiar sound made its way to Nathan's ears, and he shifted his gaze to follow it to its source. Elsa was laughing heartily, several men in royal guard uniform standing around her and laughing with her. Their behavior would have been highly unprofessional had they been on duty, but the entire party was to celebrate their "courage and loyalty in the face of overwhelming opposition" as well as to "commemorate the losses that were suffered at the hands of the enemies of Arendelle" as Elsa had so eloquently put it. Most of the people in the large room were royal guards, most of which were still wearing their uniforms despite being told that civilian clothing was fine.

There were a few individuals who stuck out in the crowd, wearing far more fine and ornate things than the guards, and Nathan presumed them to be various nobles. None of them had the build of a guardsman, all being either too fat or too lanky to hold a spot in the ranks. In spite of their differences, the nobles and the guards seemed to be getting along as well as could be expected.

Nathan's attention was grabbed away from Elsa when he saw a group of four men approaching him. It occurred to him briefly that he would be able to fit himself entirely behind the throne on which he was leaning if he were to make himself as flat as possible. He immediately dismissed this course of action as childish and foolish, wondering why it had even crossed him mind to begin with. He pushed himself off the side of the throne and stood facing the men, mentally reprimanding himself for the apparent lapse of logic.

When they reached him, the man leading the group held out a mug and said "Would you join us for a drink?" Nathan looked at the mug briefly, noting that it was beer instead of wine, being a fairly good indicator that the men were soldiers, as none of them were in uniform. Nathan shook his head and said "Sorry, I don't drink."

The man shifted on his feet awkwardly, then said "Uh, well… I was wondering if you could maybe talk for a while. We were kind of hoping that you could tell us a little about the battle. We were all stationed in the town when it went down, and we heard that you were pretty deep in the front. Nobody that we talked to really wanted to talk about what happened up there. We thought that maybe… maybe you would be a little more willing."

Nathan sighed, than looked past them at Elsa again. She was looking up at up, having seen the men approach him, and gave him an encouraging look. He looked back to the man and said "Alright, I suppose it couldn't hurt to give you a few details."

Elsa smiled as the men led Nathan off to one of their tables and started asking him questions interestedly. It was good to see him interacting with someone other than her or Anna. It didn't seem to be something that he liked doing.

It had been three weeks since the warning about the possible fall of Arendelle, and since then she felt that she had calmed down considerably. She had been anxious and jumpy for a while, but with time that had subsided. Nathan, Anna and Kristoff had all tried their best to set her at ease, and it had worked for the most part. The one who did the most good had to have been Nathan. The two had shared a few more intimate moments, but much to her dismay Nathan didn't seem to have adjusted well to showing his feelings to anyone but her. It was slightly aggravating, but she was more sorry for him than angry with him. Every time that he tried to say or do something in front of someone else it just tapered off into nothing.

In spite of his obvious difficulties adjusting to their relationship, Elsa loved him. She could feel that he loved her back, even if he had difficulty showing it in front of others. She was somewhat surprised by the different feeling in the love that she had for Nathan and the kind she felt for Anna. With Anna she felt a kind of familiarity, she knew her like the back of her hand. There was hardly anything that she didn't know about her, and she was always glad to have her around. With Nathan however, she felt like she had so much to learn about him even though he had shared so much of his story with her. She didn't just find comfort in Nathan's presence, she wanted him to be around her. When he was absent it felt like something was missing.

Interrupting her thoughts, a large burst of emotion flowed through her mental link with Anna. The feeling was hard to mistake, it was very similar to the one that she had just been feeling. She looked around the room and saw Anna in the middle of the floor, dancing clumsily with Kristoff. From what she could see it wasn't Anna that was the cause the difficulties. She couldn't help but give a little giggle, prompting one of the men to turn and follow her gaze. When he saw the dancing pair he laughed and nudged one of his friends, pointing to the pair. Elsa didn't interrupt their fun. If she were to be honest, she found the sight of Anna flailing with Kristoff quite humorous as well.

Elsa focused on her link with her sister and, with some difficulty, sent the words "Please be more careful with what you let through" referring to the emotions that she let through. Anna had something of a habit of letting raw emotions through the link when she felt intense emotions. It had been annoying at times, but nothing more. Thinking about the link got Elsa considering how Anna had adjusted to using her powers.

She had gotten better at pulling the power that she needed through the link, she could now do it completely on her own, without Elsa helping. With that ability mastered, her new issue was restraint. She had trouble telling how much power she would need for a certain effect and often ended up overestimating the amount by a large margin. The excess energy that she pulled was usually let off from the spell in an unintended effect, what she had called power "seeping out". On the rare occasion that she pulled the exact amount of power that she needed for a spell there was no such seeping. Elsa was proud of her sister. She had come a long way in the past few weeks and still tried very hard, and yet somehow was able to maintain her (sometimes irritating) immature, childish outlook on things. And Elsa wouldn't have it any other way.

She looked back to the table that Nathan had been sitting at. He was still there, leaning back in his chair and holding a palm sized black object in his hand. The men around him were looking on the object with awe. She knew that it was one of his spells. She wondered what the men had said to him to get him to show them him magic, he usually refrained from any unnecessary use of his magic. It was rare to get him to show off.

The guard who had been telling a very amusing anecdote cleared his throat and said "Well, anyways, I was over on the roof, right? And my friend decided that it would be a good idea too…" his voice faded away as Elsa started to let her mind wander again. She glanced around the room and found it impossible to not feel at least slightly humbled by the sheer number of people in the room. Almost every single person in the room had pledged their alliance to her, and that had a large impact on her. She had seen to what lengths those people would go to uphold that alliance. She wanted to thank them all so much, and she hoped that the party would show at least some part of her gratitude.

The man finished his story, and the other guards around him burst into laughter, a few nearly choking on their drinks. She smiled with them, not amused by whatever the punch line of the story had been, but elated that they were enjoying themselves. She took another sip from the wineglass in her hand and peered around the crowd again. Lee was out there somewhere, Elsa would guess by the drinks, doing what she seemed to be best at, serving drinks and talking to those drinking. It seemed that old habits really did die hard.

Lee had lightened up considerably in the past weeks, making a strong bond with Anna especially. She no longer seemed hesitant or scared to talk to them. She and Nathan, however, didn't seem to like each other very much. Lee had told Elsa about how she and Nathan had first met, and she didn't blame Lee for not talking with him much. Being tricked and blackmailed didn't tend to make for a very good foundation for a friendship to be built on. But in spite of all that, Lee had come to Arendelle looking for a home.

Someone behind Elsa tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned to find herself face to face with Nathan. She smiled and said "Oh, Nathan! What is it?" He shrugged and said "I don't know, I don't have much to do here."

Elsa thought for a moment, than a smirk came across her face and she said "How about a dance?" holding a hand out to Nathan gently. He grimaced at her suggestion and took a step back, putting his hands up and saying "No thanks." One of the guards standing around Elsa turned to Nathan and said "What? Why not? You would refuse such a beautiful lady?"

Nathan gave the man a glare that could curdle milk, than looked back to Elsa and said apologetically "I'm afraid that I don't dance, I'm sure you'll forgive me, your Majesty." Elsa grinned and said "I know that if I try hard enough I can find it in my heart. It's a shame that neither of us dance."

Nathan looked around the room, and when his eyes found Anna and Kristoff over by the musicians a wry smile came across his face and he said "Well, at least we're not the only ones." Elsa laughed, but she felt slightly bad about it. The guard looked from Elsa to Nathan with a confused look, than something seemed to occur to him and he turned to face the other direction. Nathan said to Elsa "How are things for you? Are you holding up well?"

Elsa sighed. Nathan and Anna had been worried about her in spite of her insisting that she was fine. Both of them were worried about how she was coping with the news that the safety of Arendelle was on the line. She didn't see the reason for worrying about it though. The Outsider had said that it was coming, so there wasn't anything that she could do to stop it. She was nervous about what that event would be, but she couldn't do anything about it coming. She responded "I'm fine. I have every confidence that we can deal with whatever will come. Arendelle has gone through many hardships before, war is no stranger here. There hasn't been one for a long time, but that doesn't mean that we are unprepared."

Nathan nodded and said "I hope you're right." in a neutral voice. The guards who had fought Gothel's people certainly had demonstrated combat abilities greater that what Nathan was used to from people in such a position. He made a correction in his head; he mostly had to deal with city watch, not royal guard. From what he had seen of the way Arendelle worked; the two were identical. It would limit the size of the guard, but those guards that were there would be far more effective. A better system for a small city like Arendelle, but maybe not so good for those larger cities he used to live in.

He looked back over to Anna and Kristoff. The musicians playing was slowing to a stop and those who were dancing were also slowing. Eventually they stopped, and the pair made their way over to Elsa and Nathan, both looking tired. Anna was the first to speak, looking to Elsa with an apologetic expression and saying "I'm sorry about that slip up. I'll try and be more careful with that kind of thing."

Elsa bowed her head and said "Thank you, I appreciate it." Kristoff looked between the two with a confused look for a moment before looking to Nathan with the same look. Nathan shrugged his shoulders, indicating that he didn't know either. Elsa gave Anna a comforting smile, than looked to Kristoff and asked "So how was your dance? Did you have fun?"

Kristoff gave an awkward laugh and looked down at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "Ha, yea, I think… I think I might need a little more practice." Both Elsa and Anna smiled to each other. Kristoff looked between the two again and said "Oh come on! I wasn't that bad, was I?" Neither Elsa nor Anna said anything, but Nathan figured that he would. Wordlessly, he nodded. Kristoff's shoulders dropped and he looked like he regretted agreeing to dance at all.

Anna put a hand on Kristoff's shoulder and gave him a few playful pushes. "Come on, don't be like that! You'll get better over time, if you just give it time." Kristoff nodded unhappily. Anna sighed and wrapped an arm around Kristoff's.

Anna and Elsa started talking, and Nathan started picking his way through the crowd in the direction of the drink table. He didn't want to get a drink, but rather to have a word with Lee. He wanted to know if there had been any issue with the crowd so far. The noise of the crowd were loud, filling Nathan's ears and making it impossible to pick up on any subtle noises.

It took a bit of pushing and shoving, but he got to the table. The sight of the table was somewhat impressive, the table itself was quite large, but on top of it there were mugs. Hundreds of them. Every single one was full to the brim, and Lee was standing by the side of the table handing mugs out like candy to a large group of people crowded around her. A large puddle had formed on the floor at Lee's feet, but she didn't seem to mind her shoes being soaked in spilled brew.

Nathan battled his way through the remaining crowd and pushed his way towards Lee. Things in the midst of this crowd were much louder than the other one. He wasn't sure that he would be able to even hear Lee's responses to his questions, assuming that she could hear him either. He stepped through the thicket of people and over to Lee's side. She gave him a raised eyebrow briefly before grabbing a few mugs off of the table and passing them out to the men around her.

Nathan put a hand on her shoulder and brought his face close to her ear, nearly shouting the question "Have you seen anything strange lately? Anyone been an issue so far?" Lee shook her head and inquired "Why, you expecting trouble?" It was Nathan's turn to shake his head, and he said "No, just being careful."

He turned to leave the table, but jerked back as a large volume of liquid splashed over his front. He looked up at its source, and found a mortified looking man holding an empty mug like he was afraid that it might combust in his hand and set him ablaze in the middle of the hall. Nathan gave the man a warning look before stepping past him.

Lee hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary, and neither had Nathan. It seemed that everything was going well. He let out a sigh. Perhaps Elsa had been right about what she had said when the party began. The words echoed through his head again "Just calm down, if anything happens than we can deal with it, if nothing happens than we don't do anything."

He was weaving his way back to where he had been talking with Anna and Elsa when the great doors to the hall opened. The entire focus of the room seemed to shift towards the doorway, and Nathan strained to see above the heads of all the guards. A few moments after the doors opened a few of the guards nearest started shouting catcalls and insults towards whoever had come through.

It was faint, but Nathan was sure that he heard Anna's voice from somewhere else in the room shout the name "Hans?" in an indignant tome.

* * *

Wwadawdesrtehg

Author's Thing:

WOO! So hear we have it. A new start to wild and crazy things. Of course that means that I'm going to have to find things to do differently, which is not something I'm terribly fond of. Oh god I have to do way more emotional stuff... live and learn, I suppose.

So this being new, tell me what you think of this start! Feedback is super important!


	2. Chapter 2

Nathan immediately stated working his way through the crowd in the direction that Anna's voice was coming from. He pushed people out of the way gently, but quickly found people clearing a path on their own for something he couldn't see. He stood in the center of the cleared path, and before he knew it he saw Anna stomping towards him. He placed himself in her path, and she tried to sidestep him to continue walking. He took a hold of her shoulders and held her in place. She strained and fought against his grip, but wasn't able to escape. Nathan turned as he kept his grip on Anna so that he could see the door. He was surprised to see more than just one person. It was, in fact a small crowd. He counted quickly, coming up with a count of fourteen. The person at the head of the group was an elderly looking man in regal looking clothes and a gold crown sitting atop his head. Behind him were thirteen men, all of whom shared enough of the same facial features to be related to the man. One of the men near the back of the group, the youngest looking one, was averting his eyes.

Anna gave another round of struggling to break free from Nathan's grasp, but he held firm. Elsa emerged from the crowd and put a hand on Anna's shoulder, whispering "Calm down. Hans isn't the only one here." She put a hand in the middle of Nathan's chest and gently pushed him away from Anna, than turned to face the group of newcomers herself. By now the crowd of guardsmen had all gone deathly silent, not wanting to miss a word of the exchange.

The elderly man at the front of the group stepped forward and said in a loud, commanding voice "Queen Elsa of Arendelle, I beg your pardon for interrupting your festivities, but I believe that I have business with you. I am King Rasmus of the Southern Isles, and I believe that we have some business together." Elsa raised an eyebrow, but responded, asking "And what business would that be?"

The man, Rasmus, smiled and replied "I think a face-to-face discussion about recent trade agreements is in order." And took a few more steps towards Elsa. She looked around the room quickly, biting her lip, fairly obviously hoping for an excuse to not go and speak with the man. Unfortunately for her, no such opportunity presented itself. She gave a small sigh and said "Alright, follow me. We can discuss business in a more… private place." She beckoned for Nathan to follow her, which he did, giving a nervous glance over at Anna. He didn't know if trusting Anna out here with Hans would be a good idea. Elsa seemed to be fine with it however, so he guessed that she had already considered it.

She started walking off, and the King stared following her. Nathan fell into line behind the man, making sure that he didn't try anything. He supposed that Anna would be fine alone with the other thirteen men. The room was filled to the brim with guards, so that room was probably the safest place in the entire kingdom right now. The trio, Nathan, Elsa and the King, all walked out of the room and found another small alcove, a study like room.

The door closed behind them, and the king said in a businesslike tone "Now than, the obvious. I think I know why you cut the Southern Isles out of your trade network, and to be honest I don't blame you. I would, however, implore you not to judge the whole of my kingdom by the actions of one, terribly misguided boy." He paused for a moment, as if to let Elsa respond. She took full advantage of the provided opportunity, saying "I think my reaction was entirely justified. An attempted coup of the throne is quite a large offence, especially when it is attempted by a member of a royal family, wouldn't you say?"

The man pulled a chair away from the desk that sat in the corner and took a seat in it. Elsa took a seat on a large cushioned chair by a bookshelf. Nathan stood vigilant by the door, ready for anything that the King might pull unexpectedly. He highly doubted that the elderly man even could pose any real threat to Elsa, what with her magical abilities and sharp wit.

His eyelids started to droop and his attention started to slip from his control. His eyes unfocused and he started to stare blankly ahead of him. Discussions of trade and of laws never failed to dull his mind. He began to draw his attention back into himself, examining his powers for any changes that he could make to increase the effectiveness or the efficiency of the spells. He was drawn out of his thoughts when Elsa cleared her throat loudly and said "Nathan, do you think you could go and get Anna for me?"

He shook his head, refocusing of the things around him, then said "Yes, I'll get right on it." He pulled the door open and walked out, glad to escape the hideously boring proceedings of royal business. The sounds of the party were loud through the halls of the castle, making it seem far more lively than it normally was. Nathan thought back to the stories that he had been told of the Prince of the Southern Isles, Hans. He had been described as a manipulative, underhanded, and morally bankrupt individual. It was lucky, it seemed, that those traits were not family ones.

He made his way to the large doors that lead back to the hall and pushed them open, stepping back into the large, warm, and loud room. The first thing that he saw was Anna standing in the center of a circle of men; guardsmen, royals, and the other twelve men that had come with the king. The thirteenth man who had come with the King was standing a few feet from Anna, looking down at the floor with a guilty expression and his arms around his sides. Just as Nathan was about to call out to Anna for her to come with him, she lunged forward with her left arm and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. He only had half a second to look surprised before Anna's right hand, clenched tightly closed, rammed into his face. Nathan knew that Anna wasn't particularly strong, but it seemed that her arm was driven forward by something other than her raw muscles. The man's nose folded to the side under Anna's knuckles, and a vicious grin came across her face. Nathan couldn't help but feel slightly impressed at her form and stance as she delivered her single crushing to the nose of the man who Nathan assumed to be Hans.

Hans's legs crumpled beneath him, and the sudden increase in weight forced Anna to drop Hans to the floor. A gout of blood was leaking from the man's crooked nose, and Anna took a step back, looking at her own knuckles, wiping the blood from his nose off on her dress.

As soon as the man's unconscious body his the floor, a round of raucous cheering erupted from most of the men forming the circle around the two. The few men who had come with the king rushed forward and started to look over their brother. Anna started to walk back, her wide grin still present on her face. As she walked away, several of the guards around her exclaiming their support or clapping her on the back happily. Nathan smirked. He looked around the room for signs that she had used her ice powers but found none. He found it amusing that she hadn't even had to use them to knock the man out.

He walked quickly across the empty space and caught up to Anna. She was about to start talking to Kristoff when Nathan called out "Anna! Come over here!" She looked over her shoulder at him, than looked back in front of her at Kristoff. He waved a hand dismissively towards her, and she slouched her shoulders and turned around, walking towards Nathan. When she reached him he started walking back towards the door and said "Come on, Elsa wants to talk to you. Something with the King and business."

Anna nodded and, as they walked out of the hall, asked "What kind of business are we talking about here?" Nathan shrugged his shoulders and replied "I don't know, trade stuff I think." The pair continued walking out, and as the door closed behind them there was another bout of cheering in Anna's favor. Nathan smirked again and asked "How hard did you hit that guy? You broke his nose pretty hard, is your hand alright?" Anna laughed to herself, then said smugly "I did hit him pretty hard, didn't I? My hand is fine, by the way." She gave a tiny sigh as she looked at the smear of blood on her dress. "That's not going to come out, is it?" Nathan shook his head. He knew how hard blood was to get out of fabric; that dress would have that smear for a very long time.

The two came to the room that Elsa and the King were in, and Nathan pushed the door open. Elsa and the King were both still in the same positions that they had been in when he left, he took that as a sign that nothing particularly bad had happened in his brief absence. Anna walked in behind him and on entering the room gave a small bow to the man seated in the chair. He waved off the formality dismissively. Elsa stood from her seat and started speaking, saying "Anna, I called you in here to…" her voice faded off suddenly as her eyes fell on the blood on Anna's dress. She immediately adapted a more concerned visage, putting her hands on Anna's shoulders and saying "What happened? Are you alright?"

Anna pushed Elsa off of her lightly, saying "Yes, I'm fine! It was just… just a little…" her eyes flicked from Elsa's face to the King sitting behind her rapidly. Both seemed to notice, Elsa looking back towards the King, and the King himself standing from his chair and stepping towards her. He spoke again, asking "What is it, girl?" his eyes widened as an idea seemed to occur to him, and he said suspiciously "Has Hans done something foolish that I'll be made to mend again?"

Anna clasped her hands together and started rubbing them nervously. "Well…" she started hesitantly "it wasn't exactly him who did something foolish." Elsa narrowed her eyes in a puzzled manner and asked "What do you mean?"

Anna took a deep breath and said "Well… I was just standing around, not really doing anything, when Hans came up to me. I didn't really want to talk to him… you know, after what happened and all, but he was persistent. I told him to leave me alone, but he just ignored me. I shouted at him, than he shouted back, than I…" she looked down bashfully at the floor "I kind of… knocked him out."

Her words hung in the air for a moment, no one entirely sure how to respond, before the King gave a hearty chuckle. The sound seemed to catch everyone off-guard. After he was done laughing he looked Anna up and down before saying humorously "You knocked Hans out? He won't be happy about this, not at all." Anna tilted her head to the side and asked in a confused voice "You aren't mad? I broke his nose!"

This information seemed to prompt another round of laughter from the man. Elsa, Anna, and Nathan all looked to each other with confused looks. The man saw their confused looks and tried to get his laughter under control. He did, then said "I told him to try and mend things between you, but it seems that he doesn't know when to take a hint. Not the brightest of my boys, I must admit." The King saying that seemed to anger Anna in some way. She responded in a bitter tone, saying "He was bright enough to almost take Arendelle for himself."

The king gave Anna a warm smile, the kind that it seemed only old men could give. "But not smart enough to know he shouldn't. He's always been an issue like that, coming up with intricate plans that always ended up backfiring because he didn't consider what would happen if his plan worked. I'm just glad that his plan didn't work this time." It seemed that he had defused the situation in a rather skillful way.

Elsa gave the man a puzzled look and said "You don't care that my sister just broke your son's nose?" in a disbelieving tone. The King laughed again and said "No, no. If your sister can teach him to think things through more carefully, than she can hit him as many times as she wants." Anna spoke quickly in response, saying in a hopeful voice "Do you really mean that?"

Elsa elbowed Anna hard in the ribs. The man smiled, than continued talking to Elsa, saying "There was one more thing that I intended to ask you about. Hans insisted that he saw you use what he called "magic" several times. I reason with him that he must have imagined the whole thing, but he was quite persistent in insisting that he had seen you use some kind of inexplicable power to cause a winter, and in the middle of summer no less! The very idea is ridiculous, I know, I only wish I knew where he gotten that idea."

Both Anna and Elsa hesitated, not sure whether to tell the man that his son was right. Nathan saw their uncertainty, but didn't know what to do about it. He could've done a small demonstration like he did for the Captain of the Guard, but he didn't know if that would be a good idea. It was clear that the man didn't believe that they had magic, and it could be best to keep it that way. Some people didn't react well to such a reveal.

Elsa broke the silence, speaking slowly and choosing her words carefully. "Maybe that isn't so ridiculous." the king rose an eyebrow, and she said quickly "I mean, everyone's seen something that they can't explain, right? I know that I have. Last summer was unnaturally cold here in Arendelle, maybe there is something to what he said." The King scoffed at this, replying "And what of you, dear Queen? He said that it was you who brought this cold, not any strange weather, or ill omens, but you yourself. Are you saying that this ridiculous fantasy?"

Elsa gave him a nervous smile and said "Well… there might be more than you think." The King eyed her suspiciously and said "Are you saying that my son was right to call you a witch?" Elsa hesitated again, obviously taken aback at the harsh word. Anna interjected, defending her sister, saying "My sister is not a witch! Just because she can do things that other people think are impossible doesn't make her dangerous!"

Elsa shot a worried look to Anna, who clapped her hands over her mouth and looked mortified. The King stood from his chair and took a step away from Elsa, his expression growing more and more concerned. Nathan saw his hand creeping towards his waist, towards an ornate ivory looking hilt. He knew that the situation was fragile, but he could not allow the man to even try to hurt Elsa or Anna.

Almost too fast to see, Nathan pulled the hilt by his side, drawing the blade smoothly from its sheath. In one lunging motion he moved forward past both Anna and Elsa, placing the wicked sharp edge of the sword at the man's throat. His eyes widened in shock as the cold steel came to rest of his bare skin, and his hand stopped its slow crawl towards the hilt. Nathan looked into his face, making his eyes as cold and foreboding as possible. As he did this the words of the Outsider echoed through his head as it seemed that they loved to do. "War is coming Nathan, and when it does you will be one of the most important pieces on the board."

He didn't have much experience in foreign relations, but he knew that what he had just done could easily be considered an act of war. He reached forward with his left hand and grabbed the hilt on the man's belt and pulled it from its hidden position. The weapon confiscated, Nathan took several steps away from the man. A deathly silence filled the room as Nathan turned and handed the knife to Elsa. She took it and turned it over a few times, thinking of what to say next. After a few more moments of painful silence she composed herself and turned back to the man. In her most practiced harsh royal voice she said "Are the Southern Isles filled with nothing but vipers, ready to strike at anything they don't understand?"

The king scoffed at the question for a moment before exclaiming loudly "This is an outrage! I won't stand for this!" Nathan chose this moment to break the silence that he had been holding, saying critically "Yes, I agree that pulling a blade on the leader of another nation might not be the best of ideas. I would recommend avoiding such a course of action in the future."

King Rasmus scoffed again, than took several more steps away from Elsa, saying "What's to be done with me now? Am I and my sons going to be thrown in your dungeon to rot, or perhaps we'll all be executed immediately, in front of all of your soldiers out there?"

Elsa was visibly taken aback by the very idea of what the King was proposing. She shook her head and said "No, we aren't brutes just because we can do things that you can't. If it really offends you so much, than leave. We won't stop you." She stepped away from the door and motioned for Anna and Nathan to do the same. They did, and the King walked past them carefully but quickly. He opened the door and rushed out back towards the hall, casting several nervous glances back over his shoulder as he went.

Elsa, Anna and Nathan all looked at each other in silence. No one knew what to say. What could they say? They were all thinking it. This seemed to be very similar to what the Outsider had warned about, war seemed like it wasn't out of the question after what had just happened.

Anna, Elsa, and Nathan walked out of the room wordlessly. When they reentered the large hall, they were just able to see the doors at the other end of the hall close as the King and his thirteen sons left. Nathan saw a few of the guards nearest the door throw a few rude gestures at the door as it slammed shut. He felt some small amount of comfort, knowing that at least there were those who had probably angered Rasmus just a little bit more. Lee emerged from somewhere in the crowd and walked up to Elsa, saying "What was that?" pointing a thumb over her shoulder at the door "That guy looked pretty mad."

Elsa sighed and looked forlornly over the rest of the room. "I've got this nagging feeling that that was the start of what the Outsider warned us about." Lee's face darkened, and she looked sideways at Nathan. He thought that he saw some small accusation in her eyes. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and said "So, were going to war now? How are we going to prepare for it?"

Elsa shook her head slowly and said "No, we won't. Not yet. We don't know if there is a war coming or not, and until we know for sure I don't want to do anything that might make us look like the aggressors. I'll start contacting other kingdoms and seeing if they would be willing to give us support if we are attacked." She gave Lee a smile that seemed out of place, considering the circumstances. "If we do go to war with the Southern Isles, we will be better prepared than they expect. If there is one definite advantage that we have here, it's that we have many good friends."

Anna shrugged her shoulders and said "A little magic doesn't exactly hurt our odds either, you know." Nathan nodded. He knew that Anna was probably talking about her and Elsa's powers, but his own alone could probably stop any war that the rulers of the Southern Isles decided to wage on Arendelle. A plan to do so was already forming in his head; it would involve assassinating each of the King's sons until he caved in and called off the hostilities. There wasn't any guarantee that he would cave in, of course, but if he didn't than Nathan could simply take him out as well. Without any heir to the throne the country would likely fall into turmoil, and armies would be called back. A simple solution to a simple problem.

This was a plan that he knew would only be used in very desperate times, though. There was no way that Elsa would approve of the systematic murder of an entire kingdom's governing family, not with things as they were now. He would wait and see how things played out before proposing the idea. If Elsa's semi-uncharacteristic optimism proved justified than such dramatic action wouldn't be needed at all.

Kristoff called from somewhere out in the crowd, and Anna dashed off towards him. Lee looked from Nathan to Elsa and, seeing that there was nothing else to discuss, turned to leave as well. Nathan stood next to Elsa silently, enjoying simply being in her company. It was funny, never had just being in close proximity with someone had such an effect on him before he met Elsa. She drew a deep breath and looked out over the room once more before saying to herself almost too quietly to hear "It's all going to be fine, I've got everything under control."

The tone of uncertainty in her voice made Nathan just a little nervous.

* * *

Author's thing:

sometimes I wish I had the ability to plan more than a few chapters ahead, because boy are there a ton of places this could go.

as always leave a review and tell me what you thought! Validate me!


	3. Chapter 3

The party cleared out long after the sun had left the sky. There was plenty of mess for the servants to clean up. The last guard to leave staggered out the door, his weight supported on the shoulders of two of his friends. Elsa watched them go, a small smile on her lips. Nathan walked up behind her quietly and joined her watching the men leave. As they left the building, and the doors behind them closed. Immediately the tone of the room changed. The comfort and revelry faded into an uncertain silence.

Nathan cleared his throat, making her jump. She turned, gasping, and said "Oh! Nathan, you scared me!" He gave her a smug grin and shrugged. She smirked and looked back to the door, saying "Of course you wouldn't do that on purpose, would you?" He laughed and said "No, of course not." Elsa took a deep breath as she continued to look over the now empty room. "Do you think that they enjoyed themselves?" she asked, her voice sounding like she needed some affirmation that the time setting this event up had been well spent.

Nathan put an arm over her shoulders and said "I think that they had a wonderful time, and I think that you've made them all see just how lucky they are to have you as their Queen." She smiled again, than turned to him and put both hands on his shoulders, looking warmly into his eyes, and said "For someone who keeps their feelings under tight watch, you sure know how to honey coat your words."

He shrugged again and, with another short second of thought, said "You make it too easy." He could see that Elsa was enjoying the complements, which made him glad that he wasn't going too far with them. He felt Elsa's arms start to pull him towards her, and knew what was coming. His lips met Elsa's, but his mind wasn't focused on the kiss. He wondered just how aware of pulling him towards her she was. Sometimes it seemed that she was acting far more on instinct than thinking about what she was doing. He decided that he would try and followed her example as Elsa got a little more intense with her kissing.

He didn't know exactly how long they stood there, but it was long enough for him to let himself relax. Letting himself relax only made him jerk back harder when he heard a door open and Anna's voice start to cut through the air. He immediately regretted doing so. Elsa looked like she was a little hurt by his sudden withdrawal. He didn't want to see the hurt expression on her face, and whatever Anna was doing was a welcome distraction.

She was walking backwards, talking to someone outside the doorway. Nathan thought he could guess who it was, but kept quiet. Kristoff walked through the door as well, and both of them were talking warmly to each other. They looked around briefly at the messy room before noticing Nathan and Elsa standing at the far end. They stopped talking to each other, and Anna waved, saying loudly "Hey, Elsa! Can we talk a minute?"

Nathan heard her sigh, than her footsteps as she walked over to meet with her sister. He turned and followed her. The two walked across the room, and Anna and Kristoff did the same. They met near the middle of the room, close to the table that had borne many drinks hours earlier but now had only a few toppled empty mugs. Kristoff gave Elsa a worried look and said "Anna told me what happened. What are you going to do? I… I know that Arendelle is tough, but do you really think that you can stand up against the Southern Isles? They aren't much larger of a nation than us, but they have a really big army."

Elsa gave Kristoff a small smirk and said "I'm well aware. Perhaps if you have any ideas on the matter, you could step up to the throne and try your hand at commanding a nation." Kristoff's eyes widened and the color drained from his face. He held up his hands in a defensive manner and said "No, no, I'm fine. Just forget I said anything."

Elsa smiled again and said "I know that things may be daunting, but after what happened with Gothel, I have the utmost faith in my guard's abilities. I don't plan on doing any attacking, only defending. In addition to making it clear who the aggressor is, the people of the Southern Isles won't harbor much of a grudge against us." She paused a moment, then said "Assuming that we go to war with them at all, that is."

Anna nodded, quickly to adopt the more optimistic perspective. "Yea! I bet that that old man isn't stupid enough to just start a war over such a little thing. He's got to know that we can look out for ourselves." Nathan wasn't so sure. The man had seemed reasonable at first, but had quickly sought an advantage as soon as he found out about Elsa's extraordinary abilities. Nathan would guess that he would do the same on a political scale. Now that he knew that there was a nation full of potentially dangerous people, all of whom might be able to control forces well beyond his own reckoning. Only Elsa, Anna and Nathan could use magic, but the King didn't know that. For all he knew every single guard who had been present was able to use magic.

Kristoff gave a noncommittal "Maybe." under his breath. Nathan shared the feeling. It was far more likely that the man now saw Arendelle with a target painted across it. He shook his head and tried to get rid of the ominous feeling that something was coming soon. He almost wished that Lee had never told him or Elsa about what The Outsider had said to her. But if he hadn't, than they wouldn't know that the King intended on carrying through with his threat. Assuming that the war would be with the King, of course.

He put a hand to his temple as a small pain started to flare up inside of his skull. It would seem that the warning that was given wasn't all that useful after all. Elsa looked back to him and, seeing his pained expression, put a worried hand on his shoulder and said "Are you alright Nathan?"

He nodded. "I'm fine" he said. "I was just thinking about… never mind, it's not important." Everyone was silent again for several moments before Anna made a nonchalant reach for one of the very few mugs that still had any liquid in them. Elsa noticed the move a second before Anna was actually able to get a hold of the mug. She said in a loud, commanding, but not harsh voice "Anna, no."

Anna flinched, than turned back to Elsa and said "But Elsa, I… you don't… come on!" Elsa shook her head and said "No Anna, you still aren't old enough." She gave a frustrated sigh, then said "What's the worst that could happen?"

Nathan stepped into the debate at this point, happy at the opportunity to help Elsa in something that he knew Anna wouldn't let go. "The worst that could happen is that you become an alcoholic, your physical condition deteriorates steadily over the next few years, and then you die of organ failure."

Elsa smiled smugly, but Anna gave Nathan a rather shocked look. He shrugged and said "Don't blame me, you're the one who asked for the worst."

Elsa said in a voice smug enough to match her expression "No drinks." Anna gave a sad sigh, than took a step away from the table. Elsa nodded approvingly, the smile still on her face. Anna was silent for another moment before Nathan cleared his throat and said "So are we just going to stand around and do nothing?"

Elsa sighed, then said "No, I suppose we should find somewhere else to talk." Anna and Kristoff both nodded, and started walking off towards the doors. Nathan followed. All of them had eaten enough food during the party to be considered a meal, so they didn't really need to stick around the hall. Nathan could feel his eyelids starting to droop and his limbs starting to feel a little heavier than they normally did. The four of them made their way up the stairs and walked over to Anna's room. The door was thrown open, and Nathan was somewhat surprised by what was inside.

The walls and ceiling weren't as covered with ice sculptures as Elsa's room, but that didn't mean that there was any shortage of intricate looking formations to be found. None of them were quite as impressive or as intricate as the ones in Elsa's ones though. Elsa noticed Nathan's look and smiled, saying "She's gotten pretty good, hasn't she." He nodded, wondering if he could do something like that if he tried hard enough.

Anna and Kristoff both sat on Anna's bed next to each other, their hands clasped together. Elsa took a seat in one of the chairs, and Nathan stood to her right and slightly behind her. He didn't feel like sitting down, not after he and Elsa had been interrupted. Anna and Kristoff started to talk to Elsa about their various experiences they had during the party. Nathan could plainly see that there wouldn't be much in the way of an interesting conversation happening. Everything important that could be discussed seemed to have been already.

It wasn't long after this that Nathan excused himself from the room and started to make his way back towards his room. He was tired, and there wasn't much else to be discussed that interested him much. He let out a frustrated sigh as he considered the possibility that it could be a large amount of time it could be until he actually got anything to do relating to the Southern Isles. If the old man in charge of the country really was foolish enough to proclaim a war just because Elsa was magic, than Nathan would enjoy protecting Arendelle. A kind of energy had been building in Nathan's chest over the past few weeks, and it felt like it was about to reach its boiling point. He had been doing nothing useful since Gothel's attack, and it didn't sit well with him. He knew that the feeling gnawing away at the center of his chest was restlessness. He just wished that there was something that he could do about it.

He opened the door to his room and stepped inside. Perhaps there was something that he could do to pass the time other than sleeping, something that would be productive and somehow increase the scope of what he could do. His eyes drifted slowly to the locked footlocker at the end of his bed that held the rune from the shrine Nathan had found after Lee had delivered her foreboding message.

He dug the key to this footlocker out of one of the many pockets that he kept and knelt down to unlock the small chest. The top flipped open, and the alien sounds that all runes seemed to make started making its way out of the box. Nathan reached towards it, and the noise cut off abruptly as soon as his fingers touched it.

Pocketing the key again, Nathan set the rune on his bed and took a seat next to it. He pulled his long leather gloves off slowly, than took the rune in his bare hands. The smooth bone surface of the rune vibrated softly, giving off a strange aura of heat while simultaneously sucking the heat from Nathan's hand fast enough to make it seem like he had put it on a sheet of ice. The feeling was strange, but not distracting enough to give any problem to Nathan's concentration as he narrowed it onto the rune.

The power inside the rune opened up to him, spreading through his mind and creating the image of a large cloud of shadow. The power felt good in Nathan's mind, but a problem came into his mind. He didn't really know what new spell he needed. In the weeks since Gothel's attack he hadn't run into any situation that required a new power to deal with. He racked his brain for some difficulty that he had encountered recently, but still came up with nothing.

He cast around the room for any inspiration, but none jumped out at him. His eyes lingered on the flickering flame on the top of a candle for a moment, than something behind it seemed to grab his attention. It only lasted a second, a phantom thrown on the wall for just an instant. It hadn't had any particular shape, but rather had simply given him an impression. For a moment, it had seemed that there had been some kind of spike jutting up and off of the floor. It had reminded him of the ice spike that Elsa was fond of using in a fight. He wondered if it was possible for him to produce a similar effect with raw shadow.

He gave the matter some thought for a moment before setting about producing a spell that would accomplish such an affect. He spent a long time shaping the shadow into various forms, trying to achieve the effect that he wanted. In the end however, it was a different kind of darkness that enveloped Nathan. The bed was too soft, and Nathan too tired to stay awake. He fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When he woke up, the sunlight was streaming in through the window and the candle that had been lit was burned down to a stump. The rune was laying by the side of his bed on the floor. It must have slipped out at some point during the night. He pushed himself up off of the bed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He then bent down to pick the thing off the floor. After retrieving it and tucking it away in a pocket, he found his gloves and slid them on.

He turned towards the door and gave his head one final shake to clear the rest of the sleep. He walked over to the door and walked out into the hall. There was no one out in the hall, as seemed to be common for this particular hall. It was rather out of the way and there wasn't anything particularly useful in it. He started walking off, wanting to find Elsa and ask her if there was any advice that she could give for the new spell. Making shadows become solid and making them stay so was always a challenge. The only reason that he had been able to animate his own was because there was a link from a person to their shadow. He had used the knowledge of this link to make it possible to animate other's shadows as well. If Elsa was able to provide him with any useful knowledge, he hoped that he might be able to use the shadows of inanimate objects to produce a formation like Elsa's spike.

The bottoms of his boots made a soft tapping sound as he walked. He found the sound mildly irritating, and altered the way that his foot fell. He made sure that his heels hit the ground first, and that his step was more rolling than normal. He also started stepping lightly on the floor, shifting his weight as he walked. The noise produced by his steps stopped. Nathan smiled. There was some small, simple pleasure in doing something completely silently, even something as mundane as walking through the halls.

He came to one of the larger hallways when his stomach gave an angry growl. He gave an annoyed sigh. He would far rather spend time on his new spell than eating, but he knew that Elsa would remind him of the importance of having enough food. He changed his course to the great hall, intending to pick up some bit of food and take it with him as he searched for Elsa. He threw the door open and found himself greeted by the sight of around ten servants relentlessly cleaning the floor and several tables.

He walked past these people and approached the table that held the food. He grabbed a few of the less messy items; dried jerky and several apples, than turned to leave. He pushed his way through the doors and exited back out into the halls. He slid the apples into a pocket and started to eat the jerky slowly. It occurred to him that he didn't know where Elsa was, but he figured that he would simply look for her without using his powers or asking anyone where she was. His first idea was to check outside. She and Anna had been working together in the courtyard on improving Anna's control over her powers most of the time that neither of them were occupied by royal duties.

He made his way to the door that led out to the courtyard and pushed it open, careful this time to avoid being blasted by Anna. The incident that had happened several weeks ago had repeated itself several times, and Nathan had no interest in repeating those incidents. The door creaked open slowly, and he could immediately hear the telltale crackling sound of ice forming.

He opened the door wide, and saw more or less what he expected to see. Anna was standing with her back towards the door, her hands raised in a ready stance. She was facing off against Elsa, who was standing across the courtyard facing her, her hands raised in a similar fashion to her sisters. There were obvious signs that the two had been going for some time already, there were many large patches of ice and snow in places that would've been difficult for natural falling snow to reach.

It looked like the two were about to start their exercise again, but before they did, Elsa's eyes flicked up and onto Nathan and her arms fell and her stance returned to a normal standing position. Anna noticed the sudden change in her sister's posture and turned to see what she was looking at. Both women seemed to relax significantly. Nathan waved for Elsa to come over and talk with him, almost sad that he had interrupted their little duel. He had seen their small battles several times, and every time they were spectacles of impressive scope.

Elsa walked up the steps to the large door and, with a smile, said "What did you want?"

* * *

Author's thing:

Aww crap, how am I going to get stuff started here? I've got ideas, so it's not too much of an issue.

I am going to be returning to high school soon (shit, already?) so... you know what, I don't have a clue what the effect will be on post frequency. I posted like a madman when school was in session, so I hope that it goes back to that.

Remember to give me input! It is valuable!


	4. Chapter 4

Elsa considered the question for a moment, then said with a thoughtful hum "I don't know. I've never given much thought to the spell, it always just happened when I needed it too. I guess… I guess that I just cast magic out, then pull it back towards me as it starts to form." A confused look came over her, and she said "Wait, what are you planning?"

The corners of Nathan's mouth pulled into a small grin as he played with the idea of not telling Elsa what he was up to. It would be fun to surprise her with his new ability, assuming that he could get it to work, but he knew how he would feel if Elsa was being so secretive with a rune. "I'm trying to see if I can get something similar to what you do, except with shadows. I realize that it may not be quite as effective as one made of ice, but I've found that shadows are very flexible in their use." Elsa nodded, having seen the variety of ways that they could be used in person.

Nathan thought about what she had said, trying to figure what kind of shape he would have to create in order to make a spell that had multiple stages, as Elsa suggested. He had no idea if he could even do something like that with the rigid system that he made spells with. The idea had never even occurred to him, and he had not even so much as a clue as to how it might happen. The rune in his hand sang softly as he looked past it to the ground. He could feel Elsa's eyes on him, waiting to see if he was able to do anything. After a few more moments of empty silence, Nathan sighed and pocketed the rune again. If he were going to achieve an affect so alien to him, he was going to need more runes to do it.

Elsa spoke now, seeing that she wouldn't interrupt anything, saying "What's the matter? Can you do it?" in a questioning tone. Nathan shook his head in response. She spoke again, saying "Well… maybe I could help! It's really kind of a difficult thing to just explain with words, so maybe I could show you some other way." Nathan smiled and replied "Maybe that would help, I'd appreciate it." Elsa smiled back at him.

Then, as if from nowhere, Anna stepped out from behind her sister and said "Elsa, what do you think? About what we talked about, do you think I'm ready?" Elsa gave a tired sigh, her shoulders dropping and her eyes closing for a moment before she regrouped herself and said, turning "Anna has been badgering me to let her have a duel with you, like the one that me had a while ago."

Nathan looked at Anna with a raised eyebrow. She shrugged and said "I watched you and Elsa go at it, and now that I might actually stand a chance against you I want to give it a try." Nathan looked her up and down. She was wearing the same thing she would if she was still inside the castle, clothes that for her were rather subdued in color and didn't look at all like they were made for winter. Nathan had noticed that over the past weeks it seemed that Anna was bothered by the cold weather less and less. He supposed that that was one of the benefits of the bond she shared with her sister. Anna looked at him with a glint of a childlike hope in her eyes. He gave an amused smirk, then said "I suppose it wouldn't be too much trouble to give Anna a beating" in a joking tone. Elsa looked amused, but Anna seemed to take the remark as a challenge.

"Elsa has been teaching me, I think I can take you!" she said in a defiant tone. Nathan gestured towards the courtyard, indicating that Anna go and ready herself. She started to walk off, before stopping and turning back to the pair and saying "Since I'm new to this, can you refrain from using your sword?"

Nathan regarded Anna a moment before giving a deep sigh. It would help to even the rather unbalanced odds, but of all the things that he could get rid of, his sword was one of the hardest. He had used the blade so long that it was as if it were a part of him. With another sad sigh, he removed the blade from its sheath and hold it out to Elsa. She took it by the handle, than Anna pulled on Nathan's shoulder and said "Come on, let's fight!"

Nathan gave one final sigh before allowing himself to be pulled out into the courtyard. Anna placed him in a spot near the center of the yard, taking a position herself a good distance away from him. He could see that she was eager to fight him. She rose her arms into a ready stance that look similar to the one that Elsa used and her eyes narrowed as she started to rid herself of distractions. Nathan watched her, his gaze becoming more predatory with each passing moment. He didn't anticipate that Anna would be any particular challenge, so long as he was careful not to let himself be caught off-guard. The thought of why she wanted to fight him crossed his mind, and he considered the answer as he waited. He supposed that the need to test one's skills against something better was something that he could understand, but it seemed that there was something more to it. It seemed to him that she was preparing for something. With the threat of war looming over the kingdom, Nathan supposed it was good that Anna learn how to fight with her new powers. As ferociously as he was willing to guard them, the need could still arise.

Anna closed her eyes, took a deep breath, than shouted "Go!" in a loud voice before opening her eyes again and throwing a hand forward. A jet of blue magic cut its way through the air, the light dissipating about halfway and turning into a strong wind. Nathan moved a foot back and braced himself against the force, squinting to his eyes from the biting cold. The wind died off, and Nathan could see through the small crack between his eyelids that Anna was moving quickly towards him. Nathan could see more bright blue magic around her, and knew that he had to get out of the way.

He focused through the disorientation that the wind had caused and blinked to a spot that was close to Anna. He shot the power through the spell, and found himself slightly farther away from her that he had hoped to be. Undaunted by the mistake, he continued on with the attack he was trying to make. He brought one leg up and coiled it inwards as he turned on the heel of the other foot to come to bear on her.

Just as he started to launch his foot out from his own body, sending the hard boot towards Anna, he realized that he was not close enough to hit. She was only just starting to react to his sudden disappearance, stopping her charge and turning to face him again. As Nathan planted his foot back on the ground he saw the glowing blue that she had intended to hit him with cradled in her arms. She was twisting around in a way that would allow her to hit him. He pulled his feet back under him and started to run, not charging her directly but rather running at her side so that he would be able to get her before she was able to blast him.

He pushed off of his back foot, and a wind different from the one that Anna had used pushed strongly on his back. It took four full-length strides to get where he wanted to go, but when he did he knew that he had the upper hand. Anna continued to turn, trying to get him in her sights, but as she did Nathan grabbed ahold of her arms and pulled them apart from each other. As he expected, the light between them died out. Anna struggled against his grip for a moment before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Nathan knew that she was focusing her power for a spell that she at least thought would break his grip. Chances were that if it hit him, it would.

He focused on a spell of his own, simply waiting for the right moment to let the power flow into it. Anna's face scrunched up, and every muscle in her arms seemed to contract. He could tell that whatever she was going to do was almost done, so he started letting his magical energy flow into his own spell.

The air all around Anna seemed to chill, and Nathan could feel the power behind her hands. The rest of his power dumped into his spell, and his body dissolved quickly into shadow. This was well timed, because as soon as he completely turned to shadow a loud crack rang out through the air and a thick wave of magic smashed its way through the space around Anna in all directions, frosting the ground and creating flakes of white snow in its wake. Nathan was glad that it couldn't touch him.

As the wave passed by him Nathan formed back out of the darkness. Anna looked dazed from the magnitude of the spell that she had just cast, and Nathan knew that it was an opportune time to strike. He lunged towards Anna, but his foot slipped on the newly formed ice on the ground, not enough to make him fall, but more than enough to throw off the aim of his grab. His fist closed, snagging a fistful of cloth by her knees. He had been aiming for her neck, but this wasn't all bad. He gave the cloth a hard pull, yanking Anna's legs out from under her. She toppled over to the floor, but as she fell a blue glow started building in her hands. Nathan thought about going in to end the fight, but the magic in her hands warranted caution.

As soon as her body hit the ground, the magic in her hands emptied into the ground and started to form something. Anna brought her arms up and around her, and the ice sprang from the ground around her like a protective cocoon. Nathan backed up to put some distance between him and Anna's shell. It was Anna's move now, Nathan doubted that he could get her to come out on his terms. Unless…

He focused his power on the inside of the ice dome and felt Anna's shadow inside. He hadn't practiced this spell much, but he knew that he could make it work well enough. He poured magic into the spell and gave the shadow one instruction; get Anna out of her shell. He could just barely see through the thick walls of the structure, but what he did see made him smile. Anna started to thrash inside of the ice shield, screaming about "Something in here".

Without warning, the ice exploded outward, and Anna scrabbled up from her position on the ground and ran straight away from Nathan. Something else rose from the position that Anna had been in, something that was a solid black, and exactly the same size as Anna. Nathan's smile widened as the silhouette seemed to fly across the ground and join him by his side. Anna stopped running and looked back, and the look on her face when she saw her own shadow standing next to Nathan was one that Nathan knew he would remember fondly until his dying day.

An idea popped into Nathan's head. Anna had been able to repel him when he had just gone straight for her, but he doubted that she was levelheaded enough to deal with both her own shadow and Nathan at the same time. He held out an arm and pointed to Anna in as menacing a way as he could, and the shadow started to charge its owner. Anna gave another shriek of horror and started to throw blasts of ice magic at the shade. Nathan smiled even wider as he saw the bolts of magic pass through it without effect.

Anna's attention diverted, Nathan knew that she would be easy to defeat. She might be a difficult target in a one-on-one fight, but her increasingly frantic attacks on her shadow-twin made it abundantly clear that she lacked the ability to divide her attention between multiple threats. Nathan focused his power into a blink, and in an instant he was behind Anna again. She didn't seem to have noticed his disappearance. He could have put her in a chokehold immediately, and in doing so end the bout, but he was interested in what Anna's animated shadow would do. He knew that the thing would be weaker than Nathan's was when animated, but he didn't know by how much. The shadow's physical power would depend on the person that it owed its ownership to. Knowing that, he knew that expecting Anna's shadow to be a strong choice against someone even equal to Anna's strength would end badly for the shadow.

The inky black splotch rushing towards Anna and mimicking her shape perfectly collided with her, and it was all she could do to meet its hands with her own, engaging it in a struggle. The two wrestled for dominance for a few seconds before it became obvious that Anna would be able to overpower it. She gave one strong push, throwing the shadow off of her. Nathan moved in quickly, not giving her any time to recover.

Before she knew what was happening, Anna found her throat firmly positioned in the crook of her elbow and her feet no longer touching the ground. She tried several times to breath but wasn't able to force any air through the now pinched-shut opening. She kicked and struggled as hard as she could, but the arm coiled around her neck refused to give any slack. She tried to summon power through the link with Elsa, but all the power that she was able to grab ahold of faded off into nothing as the pressure in her lungs built to the point that she thought they would explode. Her vision started to go fuzzy and fade as a black tunnel formed in front of her. Her arms and legs started to feel like lead, and she could tell that her struggles were weakening.

Then, like a splash of cold water waking her from sleep, the arm left her arm and her fell to the floor, and sweet, cold air rushed in through her nose and mouth, pulling her away from the brink of passing out. She gasped and spluttered for air, doing her best to stop from retching and continue drawing breath. Nathan's voice came from somewhere behind her, saying "I think that means I win."

Anna tried for a moment to raise some objection, but her throat refused to do anything but continue acquiring air. A pair of hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her up back to her feet. She heard footsteps that she recognized as Elsa's, than heard her voice say "Are you alright? Do you need help?" in a worried tone. She shook her head, trying to communicate that she was fine, but not even her neck wanted to obey her in the distraught state she was in. She continued to cough and take air in as quickly as she could and eventually was able to turn around and face both Nathan and Elsa.

Nathan looked her up and down, than nodded and said "She's fine. Maybe a little uncomfortable, but fine." Elsa gave Anna a sympathetic look and said "Well, you wanted to fight him, and now you have. I told you to be careful, but you just had to go ahead and do it." Nathan snickered and turned away, trying to hide it. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance that she was being laughed at. She had tried her best during the fight, but Nathan had proven too powerful to beat. As much as it killed her inside to admit, it was just as Elsa had told her it would go.

Elsa put an arm around her shoulder and started walking her towards the door. Nathan was about to follow them when he felt a small twinge in his mind. It reminded him of the spell that was still in effect. He turned to see the shadow of Anna, standing stock-still in the same place that it had been thrown to the ground. It was unmoving, and several of the guards up on the walls were starting to glance over at it nervously. Nathan gave it the command though his mind to follow him, and it did. He could feel the gaze of every guard on him as he did so, and followed quickly after the girls to escape them.

The two had already entered the castle and were standing by the door, waiting for him. When Anna saw her shadow trailing behind Nathan she gasped and said "Do you really need to tote that thing around?"

Nathan looked from her to the shadow and back again, saying "Anna, you should be more respectful. Out of everything you've ever seen, your shadow is the one thing that you can never get rid of." A dark smile came across his face as he finished "Best to avoid aggravating it."

A look of dread washed over Anna, and she looked from Nathan to the shadow quickly, like she was trying to determine if he was joking or not. He didn't give her any indication either way, and instead waved a hand towards the silhouette, ceasing the flow of power that was fueling the spell keeping it alive. Almost faster than the eye could see, the shadow dropped back flat on the floor and zipped soundlessly over to Anna, almost seeming to attach itself to her feet. She made a few motions and eyed the shadow suspiciously for a few moments before seeming to accept that it was an inanimate entity again.

The trio set off down the halls again, Anna still occasionally glancing down to make sure that her shadow was still in place. The three of them walked through the halls of the castle until they came to the library. Nathan was somewhat surprised by the choice of location, Elsa hadn't spent nearly as much time in the room since killing Gothel as she used to. He couldn't say that it was unexpected either. It was understandable that she didn't want to think about the event, and he was willing to bet that the library brought more than a few memories about that back. To her credit though, if she was disturbed by it, she didn't show it.

The three entered the room, and Elsa immediately walked over to the massive shelves of books and started to look through them for something. Anna walked up to the same shelf and picked a book seemingly at random. Nathan gave a small sigh as he realized that this was likely to be the rest of the day. He didn't want to spend the entire day reading. He wanted to spend it doing something productive, and he didn't see sitting around reading as very productive, at least not in the way that he wanted to be. He knew that the urge to do something was an itch that wasn't going to fade, so he walked over to Elsa and took a position next to her, and said "I think I'm going to excuse myself."

She turned to him and gave him a questioning look, then said "What are you going to do? Is there anything that I can do to help?" Nathan thought for a moment before replying "No, I don't think so. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to be doing yet. It's fairly certain that it's nothing that a Queen should be doing, though." Elsa gave him a sad smirk, then said "Alright, just try not to get into trouble, alright?"

Nathan nodded and said "I promise I won't get caught." in a joking voice. Both of them knew that getting caught doing something that he wasn't supposed to wouldn't be an issue. Neither of them, however, knew what he was going to be doing.

As Nathan turned and walked to the door, he could feel Elsa's eyes on him. She wanted to help him with what he was doing, but not even he knew what he was doing yet. He gave the matter some thought, and the only thing that he could come up with that didn't involve going to the Southern Isles was finding more runes. As always, the issue with doing this was that there was no predictable way to track them down. He thought about anyone who might be able to help him find them. The only person that he could think have who could help him was Lee. He didn't particularly want to ask her help in the matter, and there was no guarantee that she would really be able to help him. He supposed that he didn't have much to lose by asking her, and set about finding her.

* * *

Author's thing:

Wow, it has been a week. I... uh... time really got away from me it seems. I accept that it is my fault, but I will say that starting school again is a very disruptive event. (so is starting to play world of warcraft again but shh)

I will try to not have such a big break between chapters again, but school might happen.

Leave a review! I think people have been leaving less as of late, which is weird because number of people reading has not changed. Please, do leave a review, it actually does help (mostly because you are giving me moral support). So hey, it dosent need to be a big thing, just put a little blurb or something. Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Lee sat alone in her room, thinking. The words that the Outsider had shared with her were rattling through her head again. Why was she going to be so important? What was the thing that would set her apart from everyone else? She didn't know what it could be; her body was too slight for her to have any real physical strengths, she had no skill in fighting, and she wasn't coordinated enough to sneak around quietly. All she could really do was talk to people, a skill that she had cared for when working for Gothel, but something that didn't seem very useful in a full-out war between kingdoms.

A sudden knock at the door made her jump, pulling her quickly out of her thoughts. She wondered who could be looking for her a moment before getting up and pulling the door open. The tall, imposing form of Nathan stood in the doorway, both hands clasped together behind his back. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of slow dread at his appearance, for whenever he visited by himself it seemed that he always brought something bad with him, be it news, questions, or tasks. She always felt somewhat awkward talking to him, he was always so terse and businesslike when talking with her that it made her feel alienated.

She gave Nathan a curious look before asking "Can I help you?" in a hesitant voice. Nathan gave a sigh, then said "You might, if you cared to." This response was strange to her. If she were talking to anyone else, she might have thought that he was avoiding asking her something. She kept silent and allowed him to continue uninterrupted by her. He took a deep breath before continuing. "I was wondering if you could help me in gathering more runes. You don't have to if you don't want to, but I'm sure that an extra pair of eyes to help me look would come in handy."

Lee blinked, somewhat taken aback by the simplicity of the request. For some reason she had expected something more complicated. She nodded her head, saying "Uh, no, I wouldn't mind lending a hand I suppose." Nathan smiled and clapped his hands together softly in front of him. "Good. Take some time and gather anything you might need…" he said, gesturing to her room behind her "…and meet me out here when you're ready."

Le looked back into her room, than stepped through the door out into the hall and shut the door behind her. "I'm ready now." she said, curiosity being the main fuel for her eagerness. She wondered where they were going to go, she herself had gathered what she had assumed to be the majority of runes in the city, but perhaps there were more than she thought? Nathan looked her up and down critically, than shrugged. "I suppose it'll do." He said in an unimpressed voice. Lee looked down at her dark, slightly green leather jacket, black shirt and dark pants. She thought she was dressed well enough to be able to hide in a corner inconspicuously, but if Nathan doubted her, she wanted to know how to do better. "What's the matter? Can I do something better?"

Nathan shook his head and started to walk down the hall, saying over his shoulder as he motioned for her to follow "Its fine. I would normally say something a little less conspicuous, but you're so small that I doubt it would really matter." Lee sped her step to stay next to Nathan, looking down at her garb again and asking "How could I make it less conspicuous? How does me being short matter?"

Nathan smirked and said almost too quietly for her to hear "I didn't realize I was agreeing to take a student" before clearing his throat and saying in a more audible voice "What you're wearing isn't too bad I suppose, it just does nothing to throw off any suspicion." He gestured to his own clothes, the grey leather of his jacket and his light brown pants. "Have a theme." He suggested. "If you look like a generic person, than it gets harder for anyone to place you. What I wear is more born of practicality than anything else, but it looks fairly common anyways. If you just saw me on the street I'd bet you wouldn't give me a second look. Maybe my pouches or blade might look a little out of place, but nothing particularly noteworthy."

Lee nodded. It made sense, being as unremarkable as possible to avoid sticking around in people's memories. Again, she glanced down at her own garb, and didn't see how it was memorable. Nathan must have seen her face, because he said "It's not that what you are wearing is too far out of the ordinary, it's more that you are the memorable thing. People aren't usually as short as you. People tend to remember things like that."

Lee felt slightly taken aback at this comment. She was about to retort by saying that perhaps everyone else was freakishly tall when seemingly out of nowhere the realization that she was roughly two heads shorter than Nathan panged through her mind, and she could do nothing but agree with him. She had been identified several times in the past by her size, it had proved a very irritating factor when she was trying to be forgotten.

Nathan spoke again, this time not only pointing out flaws. "Luckily for you, being small had quite a few benefits too. You can get into hiding places that other people can't, and being smaller makes it less likely that people would be able to see you." The pair neared the door to the outside, and Lee started to feel some trepidation as to where they were going. She tried to voice these concerns without sounding afraid, asking "So… where are we going to find these runes? Should I have thought about bringing a weapon or something?"

Nathan thought in silence for a moment before digging around in his pockets and eventually pulled out a small dagger and handed it over to her. "Maybe it would be better if you had something to defend yourself with. I'm not saying that you are going to need it, but you know, better safe than sorry." Lee took the blade and felt the weight in in her hand. She was about to pocket the blade when Nathan handed her something else. She took it, and found that it was a small leather belt with a shaped leather sheath about the size of the dagger. She took it, nodding gratefully to Nathan as she looped it around her waist and slipped the dagger into its place by her side.

They reached the large door, and Nathan pulled it open without hesitation. The cold wind rushed into the hall as the two of them stepped out into the biting air. Both started walking across the courtyard towards the large gates, making to leave the castle. Lee gave Nathan an unsure look and said "Where are we going, again?"

Nathan grinned as they walked over the bridge that connected the castle to the mainland, and said "I don't know where we're going yet. We're just going to look around, and if a few runes pop up, than we grab them. Some weird stuff happens around them, of course, so it would probably be best if you kept that knife ready."

Lee nodded. She wasn't very skilled in fighting, but even without knowing the nuances of combat she was fairly confident in her ability to use a dagger in a pinch. Nathan stopped halfway across the bridge and looked out across the city, thinking about where they were likely to find any runes. He doubted that in the weeks since Lee had come to Arendelle the bartender that she had talked too had heard anything about any new ones popping up, and besides, he doubted that he had enough money with him to "convince" the man to tell him about it. Lee stopped by his side and looked out over the buildings as well. "What about there?" she said, pointing to the butchery on the water. "That's where I got one of the three I gave you."

Nathan considered than said "They might have found another one by now I suppose. Sure, let's try the whale butchery first." Lee nodded in agreement, and both of them started walking towards the facility on the other side of town. Neither one spoke along the way, as neither one had anything that they particularly wanted to talk about. In spite of the silence, there was no awkward or out-of-place feeling between the two. Lee felt like she hadn't around Nathan since she had met him; comfortable. She got the feeling that there was, for once, a very mutual feeling of ease and understanding. Neither one had anything to say at the moment, and neither felt the need to fill the silence with small talk.

When they reached the gate to the large series of buildings Nathan let out a long breath, hissing through his teeth annoyed. The large gate was closed, and as Nathan gave it a solid pull, it became clear that it wasn't going to move much either. Several chains locked with padlocks held the gate in place, assisting the heavyset latch built into the wall that was doing the same. Lee gripped the bars of the gate with both hands and peered through, looking for any sign of activity inside. It appeared that the facility was totally dead.

"I don't think anybody's home." she said in a semi-sarcastic tone, turning to face Nathan. He peered in through the gate as well. "I guess we could climb it, though." Lee suggested tentatively, not very sure of how Nathan would react. He put a hand to his chin and cocked his head to the side slightly. Lee was about to ask what he was doing when he nodded and said "I suppose we could do that. So long as we don't get caught, that is." Lee smiled, and started sizing up the gate in front of her.

It lacked the sharp iron spikes that some gates had, which would make it far easier to climb. Lee took ahold of the bars in front of her and started to pull herself up, using the chains holding the gate shut as a step. She thought about asking Nathan if he wanted to go first, but dismissed the thought as she continued to climb. She doubted that Nathan cared about who went first so long as she didn't make too much noise. She reached the top of the gate and clambered over the top. Getting a slight feeling of vertigo when she looked to the ground, she decided to climb down a bit before jumping off. She didn't want to twist an ankle. As she went down she spied Nathan watching her with his arms crossed, waiting for her to finish going. Her foot touched the chain again, and she knew that the jump was safe to make. She pushed off from the gate and landed solidly on her feet.

Nathan was still standing with his arms crossed, looking at her. She shrugged her shoulders and said in a challenging tone "If you think you can to better than go ahead." As soon as the words exited her mouth she regretted saying them, remembering who she was talking to. A smile crossed Nathan's face, and he said "Gladly."

He bent his legs, bringing his back knee almost to the ground. Then, accelerating to startling speed, he bounded up into the air. His clothing and his hair acted like they were in a strong wind, but Lee couldn't feel any movement in the cold air around her. He hit the highpoint of his arc just above the top of the gate, his boots almost brushing against the top of the gate, than descended back down to the earth just as rapidly as he had left it. The hard bottoms of his shoes hit the ground, driving through the layer of snow between them like a hot knife through butter. He bent his legs when he hit the ground, but not nearly as much as it seemed he should have in comparison to the distance he had fallen. He straightened up and smiled gloatingly at her. Lee turned towards the large series of buildings and muttered under her breath "showoff".

Nathan's laughter was a strange sound to her, not having heard it much before, but on its own wasn't enough to make her turn around to look at him again. What did make her turn back to Nathan was when he ruffled her hair in playful manner, laughing. She batted his hands away from her and shot him an angry look. It wasn't that she minded the gesture itself, in fact it surprised her that Nathan even could act so familiar with someone, but rather that the very same gesture had happened so often through her childhood that she had grown to resent it.

Nathan met her angry glare with an amused grin, saying "What? You're just the right height!" Lee tried to continue to look angry, but something about the absurdity of Nathan telling a joke simply was too much to handle. That, on top of the fact she found the comment genuinely funny caused her to burst out laughing, only to be silenced by Nathan seconds later when he placed a gloved hand over her mouth. "We're still trying to stay quiet here. We can laugh about this later, we still have to "check" if this place has a rune." He said, making large air quotes in the air with his fingers on the word "check".

Lee nodded and started trying to contain her laughter. After a few moments, she had wiped the grin off of her face and made herself more stoic. Nathan nodded and turned back to the factory and started walking towards it. Lee followed, her eyes darting to every corner that was covered in shadow, sunlight blocked from them by some building or other. She didn't know how Nathan could walk forward with such confidence when there could be someone crouching in the shadow just waiting to blow the whistle on them. The feeling was unnerving. She spoke again, in a voice just barely louder than a whisper "Are you sure that there is no one here?"

Nathan responded in a very calm voice, saying "There's no one out here in this yard, but I don't know about the building yet." She nodded, her nerves settling slightly. She didn't know how he knew that, but if he believed it than so did she.

When the two reached the main building Nathan stood next to a door in the side and waited for Lee, putting a finger to his lips indicating that she should be quiet. She started to step more lightly, creeping towards the door as silently as she could. Seeing that she was ready, Nathan pushed the door open and slipped inside. Lee hesitated by the door for a moment before following. When she entered the door her eyes took a moment to adjust, the hall appearing almost completely dark before gradually becoming visible again. She saw Nathan up ahead, crouching by a door on the right side of the hall. She took several steps towards him before the smell of blood and raw meat filled her nostrils. She normally wasn't too bothered by such smells, but the strength of it here was overwhelming. It hadn't been nearly this bad the last time she had been here. Her eyes watered and she gagged briefly before she was able to adjust to the strong scent of viscera.

Nathan motioned for her to come towards him. She blinked away the last of the tears and crept her way over to Nathan. He was still standing by the door, peering through the small crack between the door and the doorframe, a light beaming from inside and casting a line straight down his face. Lee crept up next to him and came to rest. He turned back to her and said so quietly that she had to read his lips more than anything "He's asleep."

Nathan gave her a questioning look, and she nodded her head to show that she was ready. He nodded, than turned to the door and pushed it open slowly, making sure that the hinges didn't squeak. When it was open enough for him to pass through he squeezed himself through the gap. Lee followed carefully, making sure that she didn't touch the door at all so that it wouldn't even have the chance to make any noise.

She followed behind Nathan closely, being as quiet as she possibly could, barely even daring to breath. The man who ran the facility was snoring, face down with his head resting on his arms on the desk. Lee noted the three empty bottles sitting on the desk within arm's reach of where he was, and thought that she could guess why he was passed out. He didn't look good, there were bags under his eyes and his hair looked like it was coated with grease. Nathan continued to approach the desk, his feet falling onto the wooden floorboards so perfectly that they didn't as much as creak under his weight. Lee looked down at her own feet and wondered if she was placing her steps well, or if she was simply not heavy enough to cause any disturbance.

Nathan passed behind the desk and turned his attention to a thick safe placed against the wall. After he examined it for a brief moment he mouthed to Lee "key" before casting his gaze around the room. Lee assumed that he wanted her to help look for a key, and started to look about. Neither one saw anything just laying out in the open, and Nathan gave a slight look of annoyance as he took a step over to the desk. Gingerly, he reached out and pulled one of the drawers next to the sleeping man's leg out. The man didn't seem to notice as he kept snoring loudly to himself. Nathan moved his gaze away from the man's face and to the drawer. Lee was not at an angle to see what was inside, but Nathan's lack of any real reaction to whatever it was told her all she needed to know. She pulled one of the drawers closer to her open, and found nothing but a few corked inkwells sitting on top of a few blank pieces of paper. Nathan gave her a questioning look, and she shook her head.

This process repeated itself five more times, and each time was more harrowing than the last. It seemed that each time, the man would awake and find two strange people rooting through his belongings. This didn't happen however, and both of them felt a wave of relief each time it didn't. Finally there was only one drawer left, and it seemed that the end of the constant near breaking point suspense would be over. Lee slid the drawer open slowly. The color drained from her face and a sense of dread filled her chest when she miscalculated the distance of the man's foot and the drawer, and the two touched. She knew that he was drunk, and therefore not likely to awaken from such a minor contact, but for a terrifying second, the snoring stopped. Than it continued, louder than it had been before.

She felt every muscle in her body coiled, ready to flee from the room at a moment's notice, start to relax. Nathan let out a silent sigh as he shot a look at her that scorched her, making her feel almost ashamed of such a small error. She pulled the drawer out, and inside there was a small rust colored key. She quickly took it and held it up for Nathan to see in one hand and slid the drawer shut with the other. He smiled at her and gestured to the safe, indicating that she should open it.

She was pleasantly surprised by the offer. She had assumed that he would want to be the one to open the safe. She wasn't complaining, however, and quickly maneuvered over to the safe and knelt down in front of it, beginning to open the lock. She looked over her shoulder quickly to see what Nathan was doing, and saw him standing hunched over the desk, keeping a close watch on the sleeping man's face, watching for any sign of waking. Reassured that Nathan would warn her if there was any need to run, she turned the key and slid the door to the safe open.

The metal hinges creaked against each other loudly, creating a noise that under any other circumstances wouldn't be much more than irritating. In the enclosed office room where the only sound was the snoring of the sleeping man however, this sound might as well have been a cannon firing off. She held the door of the safe still and looked over to Nathan for help, but found that he was already in motion.

Almost too fast to believe that he wasn't making a colossal ruckus, Nathan made a lunging step over to the safe and pulled the door open quickly. The sound of the safe's door as well as the sound of Nathan's foot hitting the ground seemed to have been just enough to wake the sleeping man, who jolted and started to sit up. A single rune sat in the middle of the small safe, but Nathan didn't take any time to examine his prize, simply grabbing it and stuffing it into one of his many pockets. Lee stood up as Nathan made sure that the rune was secure, and felt the urge to run as the man started to turn to face them. Just as he was about to see them, Nathan brought his left hand up and threw a ball of pure darkness at her. When the ball hit the man's face, it expanded to almost the size of the room.

Lee couldn't see anything. She took a few stumbling steps before she heard what she thought was the key hit the floor, and then a firm grip took an iron hold on the collar of her jacket. She felt a strong pull on her collar and stumbled down, suddenly she could see again. She was in the hall, looking into the office with Nathan standing behind her, his fist keeping a firm grip on her. The entire office was black, like the darkness had simply settled over the room and was content to sit inside and keep the room pitch black.

Nathan closed the door and lifted Lee back to her feet, pulling her up by the collar with one hand and pulling the door shut with the other. Without waiting for her to say anything, Nathan started to drag her quietly down the hall towards the exit. Once she had gotten her feet back under her and started to walk on her own Nathan relinquished his grip. The two reached the door and opened it. As soon as Nathan's feet left the flooring of the building and hit the powdery snow-covered cobblestone he took off, running in a beeline towards the gate that he had jumped over. Lee started sprinting in an attempt to catch up, but it didn't seem that she would be able to catch up. She called out to Nathan to low down, and to her mild surprise, he did. His pace slowed to the point where he was running several feet behind her.

As they approached the gate, Lee prepared to climb as fast as she could. She didn't know if anyone was chasing them, but she wasn't going to waste time looking back to check. The pace of her running slowed as she anticipated running into the gate, but Nathan's didn't slow at all. As he passed her, he bent over with his upper back and wrapped one arm around Lee's waist. As they got close enough to the gate that Lee could see individual patches of rust and frost on the bars, Nathan jumped, and she had to resist the urge to scream.

The two soared up in an arc, and Lee noted with dread that this arc was not as neat as his last one. They came down, and Lee felt her toe brush against the top of the gate. Nathan hit the ground, and the force of the impact traveled through Lee's body, starting at her waist and shooting through the rest of her in the blink of an eye. The air was pushed out of her lungs, but Nathan didn't stop. He took a few more steps before his pace slowed and he let go of Lee.

She fell unceremoniously to the ground, yelping as her wrist bent just a bit too far as she tried to break her fall. Her eyes started watering as the pain faded slowly away and she cradled her wrist with her other hand. She looked up at Nathan as she picked herself up off of the ground. He was standing next to her, looking back towards the building they had just fled, watching to see if anyone had followed them. Lee stood and cast her gaze out, and didn't see anyone.

She turned her attention back to her wrist, giving it a few experimental twists and pivots. It didn't seem too bad, all the pain that had surged in her arm having faded to a dull ache, and she could still move it with almost full mobility.

Nathan turned back to her and asked "You alright?" looking at the wrist she was nursing with her other arm. She nodded slowly and said "Yes, I think so." without much conviction. Nathan smiled and said "Good, because I don't think we're done looking yet."

Lee gave a tired sigh. It had been nothing if not exciting, and she found that she enjoyed spending time with Nathan when he was willing to loosen up a bit, but if all of the searches were as "exciting" as what she had just gone through she wasn't too sure that she would still be alive by the end of the day.

"Are you coming?" Nathan asked from a few feet away. She looked up, not realizing that he had already started to walk away. "Yes" she said reluctantly, jogging to catch up with him. She had the feeling that it was going to be a long, interesting day.

* * *

Author's thing:

Yea I think I'm getting back into the swing of things.

So I tried something a little different and did this one from Lee's perspective (kind of). I like how it turned out.

Leave a review and tell me if you liked it, I'm curious because I'm usually just all over the place with that.


	6. Chapter 6

Lee hesitated as she looked down the gap between the two buildings. "Are you sure?" she asked, looking back at Nathan who was standing several feet behind her, his arms crossed and a smirk plastered across his face. It was good the he was enjoying himself, because Lee certainly wasn't. She gazed again over the side of the building again, and the light dusting of snow didn't seem quite as soft against the hard stone as it had a few minutes ago.

Nathan's voice came again, saying "As long as you do it right, than yes. Remember, just drop into the roll. Start on your right shoulder and end on the middle or lower left." She was seriously starting to regret asking how he had escaped people chasing him before he had gotten his powers. He had given her some useful tips on climbing, but she didn't want to learn how to fall. Or, as Nathan put it, to break a fall.

She looked over the edge one more time before looking back at Nathan again and shaking her head. "I can't do it. Maybe if there was some dire need to, I could, but I can't just throw myself off of a building." Nathan put his hands up, like she was being the unreasonable one, and said "Its only one story! If you can't do this than I really doubt you should be climbing anything." Lee responded by taking a few steps away from the ledge and saying "There's a difference! If I'm good enough at climbing than I don't need to know how to fall."

Nathan gave a defeated sigh. "Alright, fine. You want to go back down?" Lee was about to nod and say yes when something occurred to her. Her eyes narrowed and she took a few steps to the side so that she was not close to either the ledge or Nathan. Pleased with her new position, she addressed Nathan again, saying "Yes, I do."

Nathan rolled his eyes and said "You don't really think I would push you off, do you?" Lee looked down and said hesitantly "Well…" before shrugging and saying "I guess not." Nathan sighed and said "Alright, come here. I'll take you down." holding an arm out to her. She walked over to him hesitantly, and before she could do anything, he took a firm hold of her arm. Before she knew it, there was a strong jerk in her arm and she was standing in the middle of the street. Nathan's grip unfastened and he took a few steps away from her before stopping.

Lee followed him and asked "Where are we going now?" The whale butchery had been the only place that she knew of that there was at least a reliable possibility that there was a rune. She didn't know where they would go next. Nathan kept walking silently for several moments before replying "We're just going to walk around the city and see I can pick anything up with my powers. With any luck, I'll be able to feel them when we get close." She looked at his face, trying to tell if he was joking about feeling them, but his expression was one of complete seriousness. She started to wonder why he seemed to have become much more stoic than he had been minutes ago. He wouldn't have taken any offense to her refusal to jump, would he? She had been joking about him pushing her off a roof. Mostly.

She wanted him to talk again, to joke, and be sociable again. It had been so nice to see a different side of him than the one that was always following Elsa, the only emotion being shown snuffed out as soon as he realized someone was watching. She wasn't used to it. She was used to working places like bars, where people often came when they wanted to talk. She spoke out, her voice seeming to slice through the silence of the empty streets "How are things with Elsa going?" hoping that making the subject something he cared about might draw him out of his shell a bit.

Nathan looked at her with an eyebrow raised. "What do you mean?" Lee gave a sigh. Either was faking because he didn't want to talk about it, or he was being completely serious. She didn't know which was worse. "I mean… how are you two doing? You know, have you done anything special, or… or had any important conversations recently?"

Nathan looked up, thinking, before shaking his head and saying "Not really anything notable, no." Lee knew that he was an excellent liar from firsthand experience, so she wasn't entirely sure if the slight reddening in his ears was some kind of tell, or just a result of the cold. She considered pushing the matter, but decided against it. "How about you?" she asked "How are you doing? You must be on edge, what with the whole thing with the Southern Isles looming over the kingdom."

Nathan smiled at this, but it didn't seem to be a particularly amused smile. "It's something I look forward to settling. If it were up to me, I would go out now, and "convince" those royals to leave us alone myself, but I know Elsa won't let me. She's…" he paused for a moment before seeming to settle on a word "…an optimist when it comes to matters like this. In comparison to me, at least."

Lee could see that this conversation would likely go somewhere, but that it likely wouldn't lead to the joking that she had been hoping for. Nevertheless, she wanted to get to know Nathan a little better. "What do you think will happen?" she asked. Nathan gave a light grunt as he stretched an arm above his head, than replied "I think the royals are without a doubt stupid enough to declare war over something so small. When they do, the people of Arendelle will fight back, and then, assuming that the military are around even, there's going to be a standstill. Neither one is going to make any progress, and then the Southern Isles will realize that the war isn't worth the expense and stop. The only way I'm going to get anything to do is if they start to overpower us." Lee nodded and said "The Southern Isles have a lot of friends. It wouldn't surprise me if they brought some of them along for the ride."

Nathan nodded. "Arendelle has a lot of friends too, you know. My guess is that they'll be just as willing to help as the Isles are to hurt. I just wish Elsa would let me at them now, instead of waiting." Lee smirked and said in a joking manner "Maybe she knows she's got to keep you on a short leash." He gave Lee an annoyed look, and she looked down at the ground, saying apologetically "Sorry."

Nathan continued looking around the empty streets, and Lee felt like he was avoiding looking at her. It was several minutes before either of them spoke again. The two were walking side by side down one of the alleyways on the outermost edges of town. As they neared the end of it, Nathan said "We're almost done."

Lee looked up and said "Really? It doesn't seem like we've been doing this for very long." Nathan nodded and said "I can feel runes from a pretty long way away when I focus. I've checked over nearly all of the town by this point." Lee looked up to the sky again and looked for the sun. It was going down early, seeing as it was winter, but it was still very close to its middle point. "So what are we going to do now? It looks like it's barely past noon. Do you want to go out of the city, or just go back home?"

Nathan stopped walking and put a hand to the pocket that held the rune that had been someone else's about an hour ago. Lee stopped as well, waiting for his answer. "I think" he said "we should at least take a look on the outskirts of the city. There might be something that I didn't catch out there."

Lee agreed. A question that had been nagging at her the whole time they had been out resurfaced in her mind, and she decided that then was as good a time as any to ask it. "What do you want these runes for?" she asked. Nathan gave her a look that seemed to ask her if she was being serious, and she clarified "I know you use them for magic, but what are you going to do with them?" Nathan took a moment to consider his answer, then said "I was going to make a spell like Elsa's spikes, but I'm not too sure now. It might be better to wait and see what I need." Lee nodded, that made sense. "You won't have practice with your new spell though." she said, not trying to sound smarter than him but honestly wondering if the practice would make much of a difference. Nathan replied "That's true, but I'd rather have a situation where I'm doing something sloppily but effectively rather than doing something perfectly that doesn't make a difference. I think the versatility of options is more valuable than the benefits that practice would give me."

"You might not get the chance to make a new spell" Lee said, than flinched at how bad it sounded. Nathan didn't seem offended, a smile creeping across his face instead. He started walking towards the walls of Arendelle, saying "What, you think I'll go down that quick in a fight?" Lee was about to hurriedly explain what she had meant when Nathan actually laughed. It was still strange to her ears. "I know what you mean. That's a risk that I'm alright with. I try and stay as versatile as possible."

Another question that had been eating at her made its way to her mind, and this one was far more persistent than the last one had been. She had meant to ask Elsa first, but she had been so hesitant that it seemed getting an answer at all would be good. She blurted out without much warning "What's it like to have powers? How does it feel to just be able to control shadows, and teleport, and to throw ice around like you do?"

Nathan's smile widened slightly, and he seemed to lean back a little more as he walked. "I can hardly remember a time I didn't have powers, so that's a bit of a tough question." He thought silently for a moment before saying "It's alright, I guess. At first it really skews your view of what you can do, but you get over that after a while. When I was figuring out how to use a blade in combination with my powers, I blinked around a lot more. That let me deal with stuff a lot quicker, but I would run out of steam really fast. On the other hand, I got stronger from my power, not just physically, but in other ways too. I started to think faster, and I didn't need to eat as much as other kids. I don't think that I've gotten sick a single time since I got my power. That let me pull through a lot of stuff that I know would have killed me otherwise."

The pair came to the gate, and Nathan motioned for one of the guards to open it. "I guess my answer is that you become more of what you want to be. It's just important that you know what that is before you start."

The gates pounded open, and Nathan and Lee walked through. Lee looked at Nathan and said "What is it that you wanted to be? Has that changed since you came to Arendelle?" Nathan gave an amused snort. It was like some kind of job interview. "Yes, I think it has. My goal for all the years that I was an assassin was to keep hidden, to continue doing what I was doing in a way that people wouldn't see me. Recently though, I've noticed that my powers have gotten more… confrontational. My main goal isn't just to stay hidden now, it's to protect Elsa. Something that is difficult and not really very practical to stay hidden doing. I guess that's why I've been getting more and more powers just focused on affecting people directly."

Lee nodded her head. It made since that that change would come about. She asked "Do you feel different with those powers? I imagine that it's quite a change in pace from what you used to do." Nathan smiled, and almost laughed at the comment. "Yes, it is quite different. Everything moves at a much faster pace when you're right in someone's face during a fight. It's quite different from awaiting from the shadows for the right time to strike." Lee smiled and said "It doesn't seem that it takes too much adjustment, though. You've made it seem easy."

Nathan smirked again, than wondered if Lee was trying to get something out of this conversation. She didn't seem the type to brown-nose, but it didn't seem too far-fetched. He replied "Yes, well, it's not quite as easy as it looks. It takes a lot of focus to act that quickly."

There was another small moment of silence before Lee suck in a deep breath and asked "Do you think you could teach me a few things?" Nathan raised an eyebrow at her, and she was quick to continue, saying "I mean, we were sneaking around in that office, and I felt like we made a good team! But… but then I opened the safe, and I didn't know what to do, but you…" she indicated him by pointing a hand at him "…you knew exactly what to do. I want you to teach me how to do that."

Nathan looked sideways at the girl. Her eyes held a hopeful glint that reminded him of when he had been a child. The memories that started to surface from this weren't any that he wanted to remember at the moment. Pushing those memories back down, he considered what training the girl would involve. Time was the thing that came foremost to his mind, and training her would certainly quite a bit of it, but it wasn't the only thing that he had to consider. Other things that he had to worry about were things that didn't come naturally to him; time with Elsa, time he spent training himself against the guards of the castle, and time he spent by himself, improving himself in other, less physical ways.

He let out a sigh. "Yes, I suppose I could set some time aside and show you a thing or two." Lee's reaction was immediate. A broad smile came across her face and she looked like she was about to hug him, but she stopped herself before touching him. "Thank you!" she said, looking down to the ground with an embarrassed look on her face. Nathan nodded and said "No problem" nonchalantly.

The rest of the walk around the outer perimeter of the city took about another half an hour, and during the walk neither Lee nor Nathan said much during this time. Both were thinking forwards towards what was to come. Lee thinking about the things that Nathan would teach her, and Nathan about the usefulness of Lee once she had been taught.

The half-circle around Arendelle was completed without much of an incident. Nathan resented not finding any more runes, but the fact was that there were either no more runes to find in the city, or that they were hidden well enough to conceal them from his powers. Either way he didn't care too much for the idea of searching so intensely for them. The gate opposite the one that they had exited opened, and both of them walked in, each tired of walking by this point.

They were walking back towards the castle side-by-side when Lee put a hand to her stomach and said "Do you want to get lunch before we go back?" Nathan gave his head a slight questioning tilt before he noted that she likely wanted to talk about the training that he had promised her away from Anna and Elsa. He supposed that he could sympathize, and agreed. She took him around a corner and into the bar that Nathan had spent his first night in Arendelle at. She pushed the door open and immediately ordered something. She looked back at Nathan with a questioning look, but he waved his hand uncaringly and said "whatever", indicating that he didn't care what she got him.

She turned away from the counter and walked to one of the far corners of the room, taking a seat at a small table and motioning for Nathan to join her. He did, and she leaned forward in the table eagerly. "So what are we going to start with? Is there anything here that we could do?" Nathan looked around the warmly lit room and raised an eyebrow before turning back to Lee and said "What, like steal something from here?" She nodded and seemed to grow just a little more eager.

Nathan shook his head and said "What would you take, the cutlery? A plate?" he shook his head again "No, there's nothing here worth taking. Besides, I'd be willing to bet that anyone working this place seeing you stuff forks into your pockets wouldn't even want to stop you." Lee's smile faded, and Nathan said "I appreciate the enthusiasm, but that's beyond small-time. Unless you have some need of a pocketful of forks, don't steal a pocketful of forks." Lee pushed her tongue against the inside of her cheek for a moment before perking up and saying "What about money?"

Nathan looked around him again, then said "Do you really thing that this place has an awful lot of that?" Lee shuffled uncomfortably in her seat and said hesitantly "Well… maybe…" Nathan shook his head again. "No, they don't." he said.

Lee looked down at the wood of the table and started to pick at it sadly. Nathan realized that he had probably offended her, and said "Look, you're new, so you don't really know how things work. I get that, but if you want to really learn anything I'm going to need you not to get too far ahead you yourself. Let's take walking first before the sprinting, alright?"

Lee looked up from the table and into Nathan's face. His eyes were softer than they usually were. She nodded and said "I'm sorry I jumped ahead of myself. It won't happen again." Nathan shrugged his shoulders and said "You have lofty goals, there's nothing terribly wrong with that."

Lee smiled again at him. "I think you'll be a great teacher." She said, meaning it. Nathan smirked at her and said "You've more faith than me. Just try not to test my patience, would you?" She laughed lightly and said "I'll try."

The rest of the meal went quickly, the food that she had ordered for both of them going down smoothly. Before she knew it, both of them were walking back towards the castle again, their breath misting thickly in the cold air that surrounded them. They walked through the open gates of the castle and into the warm air inside. Immediately, the pair started to look for Elsa. It didn't take long to find her.

Nathan pushed the door to the library open, finding Elsa and Anna standing in the middle of the floor, both looking at a small piece of paper with worried expressions. He walked over across the floor to join them, when without saying anything, Elsa held out the paper to him.

He took it and turned it over in his hand. In flowing black ink the paper said "war is coming" with a red wax seal in the shape of the seal of the Southern Isles. Nathan Nodded and handed the paper back. "I'd like for them to hurry the hell up." he said impatiently.

* * *

Author's Thing:

another chapter down. If you like reading, leave a review.


	7. Chapter 7

Anna looked over to her side at Nathan and Lee. Both of them had been training in the courtyard for about half an hour, much like her and Elsa did with their powers. Instead of training magic, however, Nathan was teaching Lee how to handle a blade. She looked like she was tired, but Nathan didn't look tired at all. He motioned for her to come towards him again, and she advanced, her blade held in a cautionary guard. As she walked forward, Nathan lunged out and struck at her with his blade. She was barely able to pull her arm up to position her own blade between her and Nathan's fast enough. The blow was too strong for her to adequately parry, and the blade went spinning out of her hands.

Nathan started saying something to Lee, but Anna couldn't hear it all the way from the library. She continued watching the pair for a while, until Elsa called to her from the inside of the library. Anna went to go and find her somewhere from between the bookshelves.

After a few moments of searching, Anna found Elsa leaning up against a shelf, her nose buried in a book that didn't have any identifiable markings that Anna was familiar with. She cleared her throat and Elsa looked up. They looked at each other silently before Elsa closed the book and took a few steps toward her. "Anna" she said, her voice quavering "do you think I can handle what's coming?"

Anna sighed. Elsa was doubting herself again, and was looking for reassurance. "Of course I think you can!" she said in as happy a voice as she could. "You've taken the kingdom through tough times before, this won't be any different! All you have to do is use what you've learned already, and I'm sure it will all be fine."

Elsa shook her head and said "I wish I shared your optimism, Anna." Anna found herself wishing the same thing. She took a few steps towards her sister and said "What are you reading there? Anything interesting?" trying to establish some common ground so that they could talk a little more smoothly. She had often found that finding something that both of them knew something about, and there was a chance that she had read the book that Elsa was holding.

She tucked the book under her arm defensively and said "It's nothing." In a curt tone. Anna knew the voice that she used, and knew that it meant trouble. She backed off and said "Ok, ok… so, do you want to talk about something?" Elsa took a few hesitant steps back, than let out a deep breath and walked over to Anna's side. She put an arm around her sister's shoulders, feeling the heat start to drain out of her arm. Elsa returned her hug tightly, almost squeezing the air out of Anna's lungs. She knew that if Elsa was hugging her this tightly, she really needed something to cheer her up. Her mind flicked to Nathan outside, and she wondered if she might be able to get him to come and comfort Elsa.

Elsa's hug, however, didn't seem to have any intention of letting her go and do anything. Her sister continued to squeeze the air out of her, and it was all that she could do to return it and hope that Elsa loosened her grip. Thankfully enough, she did. Anna gave her sister a sad look and asked "What can I do to help?" in a voice that probably sounded a little more desperate than she meant for it to.

Elsa returned her gaze with a sad look of her own. After a few seconds of looking at her, Elsa gave a weak little laugh and let Anna back to arm's length, looking her in the face and saying "I'm sorry. It's just that… well, you know." She motioned around her, indicating recent events as a whole rather than any one specific thing. Anna nodded. She knew that the stress of what had been happening must have been tremendous. Of all the times that Anna didn't envy her sister for the responsibilities that she held, she thought that now was the most intense.

Elsa let out a shaky sigh and walked over to one of the large chairs, dropping into the cushions like she had fainted. Wordlessly, she pulled the book that she had been reading out and resumed reading. Anna tried to look at the book to see if she could make out any identifying marks that she had missed the first time, but still was unable to find any. Elsa took notice of Anna's attempts to gain some knowledge as to the nature of the book and twisted in her seat so that her body hid most of the book.

Anna gave a small giggle and said "Elsa, why are you hiding this book? What's so special about it?" Elsa batted at Anna's face, and smiled when her halfhearted attempts to repel her sister were successful.

Anna stood a few feet away now, not sure if there were any other options for cheering Elsa up. She was acting like she wanted to be left alone, but in her experience leaving her alone was not a very good thing to do. Anna took a few steps closer again, and asked "Are you sure that there's nothing I can do for you?" in as gentle of a voice as she could.

Elsa looked up from her book and shook her head. "I appreciate the help that you're trying to give me, but I think that I just need some time alone right now. Maybe you should go and find something else to do, practice with your powers or something." Anna's face fell, but she nodded and turned to leave. As she walked towards the door, Elsa called out to her, causing her to stop again and turn around. "Thank you for the concern, it means a lot to me. Really, it does." Anna smiled back to her sister before resuming her course to the door. The question of what was in that book that Elsa thought worth hiding weighed on Anna's mind. Her sister didn't like to hide things from her, so anything that she did hide was quick to set off a few mental alarms.

She closed the door behind her and started to walk down the hall. She wasn't feeling like her usual, chipper self. She felt like a lead weight, only in the way and dragging things down. The few servants that she passed on her walk gave her strange looks, not accustomed to seeing her so subdued. She couldn't say that she blamed them. It was several minutes of walking before she realized that she had absolutely no clue where she was going. She tried to thing about where she wanted to go, where she could go, but nothing in particular came to mind. Elsa's words came back to her mind, and she gave a hollow sigh. She supposed that practicing her powers was all she could do.

Thinking about her powers set her mind on considering her link with Elsa. Both of them had gotten much more adept at using and reading the information that came through the link, and both had gotten better at stopping things from going through the link. However, there were still situations where their control faltered. She wondered if Elsa was having one of those times.

She stopped in the middle of the hall and closed her eyes, reaching for the tether that linked her to her sister. After a few moments of searching, she found it, and put her focus into it. The magic that bound them together seemed to react to her attention, flowing and moving more at she focused on it more. She delved her mind into the magic and tried to cast her attention to Elsa's side of the link. She couldn't see Elsa herself, she had learned that soon enough after getting her powers, but she could understand the feelings traveling though the link if she tried hard enough. She clenched her jaw, balled her fists, and closed her eyes as tightly as she could.

Elsa's feelings, at least the ones that she was letting through the link, were jumbled and tangled. Anna could barely form them into an overarching mood, but if she had to make a judgment she would have said that Elsa felt apprehensive.

She let her body relax again and let out a sigh that held something close to frustration. She didn't need a magical connection that she could divine Elsa's raw emotion through to tell her that. She already knew that she was feeling that way, everyone was. Well… everyone except for Nathan, perhaps. It was fairly plain how Nathan felt about the impending war. It was one of the only things that he seemed to be forthcoming with emotionally. He was impatient, and Anna couldn't say that she blamed him for it.

She thought about what Nathan wanted to do compared to what Elsa wanted to do. In comparison, Nathan seemed rather bloodthirsty, but when she considered the situation fully, Nathan's choice seemed like the best one. It would prevent any major battles from occurring and would likely make other countries respect Arendelle more, whereas Elsa's decision to let them come would put everyone in the military at risk.

A dull ache started to grow in the back of her head, and she put a hand to head with a groan. She promised to herself that she would try to think less about matters like that. Her father had always told her that she should always try to be as just as she could be, but what was just here? Neither option seemed to be any more than the others. She pushed the doubt from her mind. It was up to Elsa, and whatever she chose, Anna would follow.

A servant bumped into Anna as she stood still in the middle of the hall, rousing her from her thought. She jumped, turning to the servant and saying "Oh, sorry! Let me just get out of your way." and quickly repositioning herself against the wall.

She started to think again about where she wanted to go. She definitely wanted to talk to Nathan and see if she could get him to say anything to Elsa, but she also didn't want to interrupt what he was doing with Lee. She would've found Kristoff to talk to, but he was back up in the north harvesting ice, getting one last large load before the winter ended and ice became a little harder to find. She hated how he had to leave every now and again, often for about a week at a time, but she knew how much his business meant to him. She wouldn't want to drag it down just because she felt lonely.

Anna sighed. There didn't seem to be anything to do. She started to walk back to her room. It didn't fit her very well, being alone like this, but she knew that she could make good use of the time. She wondered if she would be able to find the same value in being alone as her sister and Nathan did.

She entered her room and closed the door behind her, unsure what to do with herself. The room was bright, as she always tried to keep it, but it didn't feel quite right. The room itself was as she expected it to be, but she simply felt out of place. She walked over and sat on her bed, but quickly stood and started to pace around the room. She didn't feel at ease, just wondering what she was supposed to be doing. Eventually, her mind turned to the things Nathan did when he isolated himself from everyone else. What did he meditate on?

She thought of the runes that Nathan had given Elsa, and that she had used to create their link. She could still remember the feeling of unease that had seemed to surround the thing. In spite of this, she had the feeling that if she were to get her hands on one, than she would be able to get something productive done. She racked her brain for where they might be located, but the only place that she could really think of was Nathan's room. She didn't want to go into his room without him, but if she was just in and out really quick, than no one would be the wiser.

She opened the door and started walking through the halls quickly. Something that she didn't want to happen was Nathan walking in on her sneaking around in his room. As Anna rushed through the halls again she wondered if the feeling she would get from a rune would change because of the magic that now was so accessible to her.

She found her way to Nathan's room quickly, and when she reached the door she gave it a few cautious wraps with her knuckles, saying "Nathan? Are you in there?" No response came, so she assumed that he was still out. Nevertheless, Anna wanted to be careful. "I'm, uh, coming in!" she said loud enough to be heard on the other side of the door. As she reached for the door handle she hoped desperately that Nathan hadn't locked the door, as she had seen him do from time to time when leaving. Her fingers closed around the cold metal, and she gave it an experimental twist. She smiled as it started to turn, than frowned as the knob jerked to a stop.

Anna sighed as she gave it a few more experimental turns before giving up. She turned away from the door and started to walk away, when she remembered something that Elsa had been speaking to her about trying sometime. She had explained how locked worked to Anna, then had wondered if she could use her powers to open a lock by pushing the tumblers up by making ice form in the keyhole. Anna smiled as she considered the prospect of learning a magic skill that her sister hadn't yet. It had yet to happen, but she had a good feeling about this one. She stepped back to the door and knelt down in front of it, putting her eye to the keyhole. She saw into Nathan's room, but couldn't see what she was actually looking for. She sighed, supposing that it would've been foolish to think that you could just see the pins in a lock by looking into it. There was no light in the lock itself, so it wasn't quite possible.

Something else that Elsa had been working with her on, something that would let Anna feel ice like it was a part of her. She had been hesitant to do it at first, but this was the first time that she had considered it actually being useful. She put a palm to the lock and started to pull power through her link with her sister. She felt Elsa take notice of the power she was using, but she didn't seem to care too much.

A small piece of ice formed in the center of her palm, and as she continued to put power into it the formation started to grow out, working its way into the lock. She kept a tight hold on the rate the ice was expanding at, the possibility of going too fast and snapping one of the tumblers making her dread any mistake. The thin fingers of ice extended slowly through the dark recesses of the lock until she felt something move away from her fingers. She smiled as the other feeler-like icicles quickly found the other pins. Each one rested below one tumbler, ready to push them up and unlock the door. Slowly and carefully, she raised each one up until she felt it click. With one final large smile, she moved the last one into place and twisted the handle.

The door opened. Anna felt a childlike euphoria flood through her as she pushed it further open and walked in. Somehow the knowledge that she had been able to do this on her own, without any help. As she looked around Nathan's room, she remembered that she was trying to be quick, and started looking around for anywhere she thought Nathan might put a rune if he were trying to keep it secret. The first thing that her eyes fell upon was a small footlocker at the foot of his bed, but she thought that there certainly had to be another place. The footlocker was just... there. I seemed too obvious for Nathan, like it was some kind of trap.

She turned her attention elsewhere in the room, looking at every detail she could, watching for loose sections of floor, creases in the wall, anything that might give away a secret. She opened drawers and looked under the bed, behind the dresser, and even looked on the underside of the table. After around fifteen minutes of fervent searching, she leaned against the wall and let out a tired sigh. She couldn't think of any other place to look.

Any other place except…

Her eyes went again to the small wooden footlocker, and she felt immensely glad that no one had seen how much time she had just wasted. And so, he cheeks burning red, she knelt down to open it. She couldn't help but feel slightly insulted that Nathan had put it in such a simple, obvious place.

She knelt down and started to pick the lock on the footlocker. The tumblers weren't as easy to push as the ones in the door had been, but she was able to open it after a few minutes of trying. As the lock clicked open and the top of the box popped up slightly, Anna felt another surge of glee at her newfound ability. Elsa hadn't done this yet, Kristoff couldn't do this, and she didn't even think that Nathan could pick locks. She threw the lid up off of the box and looked in.

The burned white plate of bone stared up at her from the bottom of the box, the black marking almost seeming to pull the darkness from the sides of the box around itself like a cloth. She felt goose bumps rise on her arms as she reached out towards it. As soon as her fingers touched the thing, dark whispers surrounded her. She couldn't make out a single word that they were saying, but the sheer volume of the multitude of voices made her recoil immediately. She fixed the rune with a frightened gaze. She looked around the room quickly, making sure that there was no one else who could have faked the effect. She didn't know why they would, but it seemed more likely than her actually hearing voices.

She didn't find anyone, and so she turned back to the rune. She considered trying to take the thing again, but thought better of it. If it had happened once, than there was nothing that would really stop it from happening again. Maybe there was a reason Nathan had it locked away.

She lowered the lid again and made sure that the lock clicked shut again. Standing and turning, she walked out of Nathan's room and closed the door softly behind her. She cast a cautious look around in the hall to make sure that no one had seen her come out. She didn't find anyone and felt a sigh of relief exit her lungs. She started to creep back to her room, doing her best to look inconspicuous. She must have let some of her feeling leak through her mental link, because Elsa said through it "What did you do now?"

Anna felt her cheeks flush as she started to explain.

* * *

Author's thing:

So the new chapter has come out. Indeed it has.

I can feel the chapters of this story slowing, and to be honest it probably has something to do with that new story I'm writing. Its a RWBY fic having to do with liches and zombies and shit, so it you like that you may like to take a look. Sorry if it starts to slow the chapters of this story down but its just fresh, and i like it, y'know?

So my other stuff aside, If you liked this that you should leave a review! Do it! For real!

Thanks for the reads!


	8. Chapter 8

Nathan let out a grunt as Lee threw herself onto his back and tried to pull him down to the ground. Instead of fighting the bizarre tactic, he let himself be pulled down. As he predicted, Lee wasn't sure how to respond, and was quickly smashed between Nathan's back and the cobblestone. She tried to push him off of her for a few moments before conceding that she didn't have the strength to free herself and shouting "Alright, get off me!"

Nathan moved quickly, taking is weight off of Lee and jumping up off the floor. Lee grumbled, annoyed as she picked herself up off the ground, brushing a mixture of snow and small pebbles off of herself. Nathan turned back to her and said with an irritating and obviously fake chipper voice "And what did we learn there?"

Lee rolled her shoulder a few times to make sure it was uninjured and said "That I can't expect to win in a straight up fight against you." in a voice that reflected just how annoyed she felt. Nathan smirked at this and said "Other than that, what did we learn?"

Lee gave a sigh as she went over the sequence of events in her head. She had dodged a few of his strikes, rolled between his legs, and hadn't had enough time to get off any proper attack. So instead she had done the one thing she could given the circumstance and jumped on him. As soon as she had done that, he dropped her. The answer that he was probably looking for came to her, and she said "Never give control of a situation to the opponent."

Nathan nodded happily. She was learning, slowly taking in the knowledge that he regarded to be somewhat basic. He looked her up and down briefly, noticing how flustered she looked. They had been practicing like this for roughly an hour and a half. He supposed it was about time that they switched to something else. Clapping his hands together loudly, he said "That's about enough of that, I think. What do you say we see how you are at sneaking around?"

Lee perked up immediately, a small smile coming across her face as she said "It's about time, I've been waiting all day for this! So what are we going to do?" eagerly. Nathan put a hand to his chin and said to himself "Yea, what will you do…" as he cast around for inspiration. The guards posted on the wall keeping vigilant watch over the city and the sea looked like they didn't want to be disturbed, and the rest of the courtyard was too barren to give even a madman any new thoughts. Nathan motioned for Lee to follow him as he started walking towards the large doors of the castle. Pushing them open, he cast around again as he started looking for anything that he could use to teach Lee something. One would've thought that the huge house filled with valuable things would be an ideal place to teach someone how to sneak around, but without any guards who Nathan thought would be in the right level for Lee to learn anything. They would catch her too quickly. What they needed were some dopey shop guards, hired help, people who only cared about their paycheck. Those had been the people who had taught Nathan how to get around unnoticed. The guards of the castle would be far too invested in the castles safety.

Even if the guards were too attentive, there were people who were not. Nathan wondered if Anna was doing anything that she would mind getting interrupted. A smile came across his face and he turned to Lee and said "Alright, I've got an idea that can be a little exercise for both of us." Lee gave Nathan a mistrusting look, and he said "What I'm going to do is to place…" he dug around in his pockets for a moment before pulling a short length of ribbon from the pocket. He held it up and said "…this, I'll put this on Anna somewhere, and you have to bring it back."

Lee eyed the ribbon suspiciously than said "Is there anything special about the ribbon? Any magic that I should be aware of?" Nathan shook his head. He wasn't sure why he had the ribbon, but other than that there was nothing unnatural about it. Lee gave a hesitant nod and said "Alright, as long as you tell them that this was your idea."

Nathan smiled as he started walking, imagining the possibilities of what could happen. Lee had seemed fairly comfortable with stealth, but she had been following his lead, not doing anything herself. And when she did have to act on her own opening the safe, she had choked up and frozen. For someone not accustomed to the pressure of sneaking around under the threat of getting caught this was understandable, but she was going to have to get rid of that fear if she wanted to take after him in any way. To do that, she could either get caught a lot and get used to it, or be good enough to not get caught at all.

Nathan started to prowl the halls looking for Anna. He fired up his shadow sense to make it a little easier on himself. After a moment of examining the results that started to pop up, he found one that matched Anna's shape. To his mild surprise, she was on the bottom floor, in a hall near his room. Curious as to why she was there, he started creeping along, Lee watching him go and waiting for him to return. ]

It didn't take long for him to reach Anna. When he turned a corner and found her standing there, walking slowly away from him, his instinct took over. He crouched low to the ground and lightened his footsteps to the point of silence. Ribbon held in a firm grasp, he positioned himself inches away from Anna and carefully inserted one end of the ribbon into a small lace loop on her back. He started to tie the two ends of the ribbon together when Anna stopped abruptly. With his attention focused on the ribbon Nathan was barely able to stop his forward motion in time to prevent colliding with her.

Her foot turned to the side, and her neck started to turn her head left, and he knew that she was going to turn around. Summoning power from the well inside of him, he threw himself back with a blink and swept around the corner that he had first turned, out of sight. His shadow sense was still active, so he was able to tell what Anna was doing without looking and potentially giving himself away. She looked around the hall unsure, like she thought she had heard something. She continued looking for several painfully silent seconds before turning back the way she was walking.

Nathan walked around the corner again, and blinked the distance between him and continues to tie the ribbon on Anna. When the tie was done Nathan turned and crept away. As soon as he turned the corner he straightened back up and let himself relax out of his stealth mindset. Immediately Nathan started to find his way back to Lee. When he did he found her leaning up against a wall, her arms crossed as she looked around the room in a bored fashion.

Nathan cleared his throat as he approached her, alerting her to his presence. She looked at him than pushed herself off the wall. "Are we ready?" she asked as she gave Nathan a quizzical look. Nathan shrugged his shoulders and said "I suppose that depends on you. I tied a bow on Anna's back, and you have to bring it to me. If you can do that, than were good for today. If you can't than I'll come up with something else for you to do. Got that?"

Lee nodded. It was a fairly simple objective, and she was glad that Nathan had chosen Anna rather than Elsa. Anna would probably be far easier to sneak up on than her sister, and likely more willing to dismiss a noise that she did hear, assuming that Lee was able to hide in time. Lee looked around the room and said "Where is she?" like she expected Anna to pop out of a corner at any minute.

Nathan raised an eyebrow at her and said "It's not going to be that easy. Part if this is that you have to find her. After you do that, just get your hands on the ribbon without her noticing, and we're good." Lee pushed her tongue against the inside of her cheek as she thought. "Can you at least tell me what floor she's on?" she asked, obviously not expecting an answer. Nathan figured that for her first time he may as well tell her. "She's here, on the first floor."

It wasn't like that would help her much. Chances were that Anna would move on to a different floor before Lee found her. Lee looked surprised that Nathan had answered, but nodded again. "Alright, thanks." she said, starting to walk away. Nathan watched her go.

The options of what he could do now started to run through his mind. He could follow Lee and observe what she did, making sure that he could teach her in the best way possible, or he could not do that and instead use the time for himself. He didn't know what he would do with that time, though. Perhaps go and talk to Elsa. But, as he watched Lee walk away, he felt like he had accepted some responsibility for her learning the skills of stealth. It was something that was easy to form bad habits in.

With a small sigh Nathan started walking after her, crouching again into a sneaking stance. He lingered behind for a few moments until Lee turned a corner before he followed. His shadow sense was still active, allowing him to keep track of Lee's movements from out of her view. She walked cautiously, peaking around every corner before turning it. Nathan was sure that the process was very intense for her, but for him it was almost painfully boring. All of the intensity of the moment that Lee was feeling was lost on him, because he already knew exactly where Anna was.

It was a painful, nearly twenty minute wait for Lee to actually find Anna in the halls. When she did Nathan nearly cried out for joy of not having to wait anymore. Lee crouched down and started to walk more slowly, and Nathan realized with a mild sense of amusement that she was mimicking him and how he had been sneaking.

Anna was approaching the stairs to go up a floor, and Lee was several feet behind her, placing each step with the utmost care and even opening her mouth slightly so that she could breathe without making any excess noise. She reached out for the ribbon, but just before her fingers touched it Anna started to ascend the stairs. Lee's fingers almost brushed Anna's back, but she was able to hurriedly jerk her arm back, almost knocking her off-balance. She was able to get her feet back under her and stop herself from tumbling over.

With Anna now moving up instead of only forward, Nathan knew that there was very little chance of Lee pulling the ribbon off without being caught at such a poor angle. She didn't know this however, and continued to approach Anna. She made a few more grabs at the ribbon, but each time she got close Anna moved up another step and out of range of Lee's grasp. By the time Anna reached the second floor Lee had made at least twenty unsuccessful attempts to grab the ribbon, but to her credit Lee hadn't alerted Anna to her presence. Not yet, anyways.

Anna started to walk around the second floor, and Lee was still right on her heels. Now that Anna was on a flat plane again Le was able to get much closer more easily. She got her fingers around the ribbon and started to try and work it off of the loop. It was tighter than it looked, and Anna was quick to feel the slight pull in her back. She started to turn. Lee looked around quickly for something that might conceal her. Her eyes fell on heavy curtains hanging in front of some windows. It seemed the only place she could hide, and so she did.

Anna turned and looked behind her. She could've sworn that she had felt something tugging at her back. She found nothing, but had a sneaking suspicion that she was being toyed with. She spoke to the seemingly empty hallway, saying "Hello? Is anyone there?" No answer came to her, which she took as meaning that there were no servants or others who would be compelled to answer when she called for them. Those weren't the people who she was thinking were messing with her though. "Nathan?" she called, almost entirely sure that it was him. "Nathan, come out! I know that you probably think this is funny, but it's not!"

Still no answer came from the hall, and Anna gave it a distrusting look. It was possible that she was just being paranoid, but considering that there was someone living in the home she had known for all her life who had spent his entire life trying to hide and deceive people it seemed more likely that she was currently the butt of some elaborate joke. After a few more seconds of waiting it was clear that she would get no answer. She turned back around and continued to walk, now with her ears perked and her eyes darting around, watching every shadow and speck of dust floating lazily through the air for any sign of a disturbance.

Nathan felt a tinge of anticipation as Lee emerged from the curtain and started to follow Anna again. She started to work her fingers over the tied ribbon, struggling to both make progress uniting the knot and keep a consistent distance from Anna. She started to actually get the ribbon off, and Nathan couldn't help but feel slightly impressed that she was able to handle such a demanding task. Perhaps she would be more suited for something like lock picking, or picking pockets, something to do with sleight of hand. Nathan had never been particularly fond of those.

The knot that kept the ribbon bound to Anna's back came undone, and Lee immediately took off in the opposite direction. She moved quickly for someone being so quiet, but Nathan knew that adrenalin could do wonders in situations like this one. He himself had gotten away from danger purely on the power of adrenalin before. The memories of his many heists as a child returned with particular clarity, and with them many possibilities of how he might train Lee next.

She reached the end of the hall and turned the corner before breaking into a full on sprint. Anna turned at the sound, but upon finding nothing as she had the past several times she turned back around and gave a frustrated sigh, speeding her walk to wherever she was going in hopes of escaping the phantom that seemed to be hunting her.

Lee turned another corner and nearly ran headfirst into Nathan, who sidestepped just in time for her to attempt to stop and fail, resulting in her losing her balance and tumbling to the floor. She skidded to a halt a few feet from Nathan and picked herself up slowly, making sure that she hadn't injured herself. Nathan stepped over to her side and held out a hand to her, offering to help her up. She took a hold of his hand and he pulled. He was surprised again by her light weight. It always seemed to catch him off guard.

"Well done" he praised, nodding his approval and holding out a hand to receive the ribbon. She deposited it with a tired smile. She was breathing heavily, but she looked happy. Nathan figured that now was as good a time as any to give his critique and said "Overall I would say it was well done, but there were a few mistakes in there. Your timing was off, you've got to keep better angles on your target, and you escape was pretty sloppy."

She gave him a look that was like a child receiving advice from a parent and said "I did it though." as if that fact excused the mistakes that she had made. Nathan nodded and said "You did, but you very nearly got caught. If that happened than it wouldn't have mattered, would it?" she gave a dejected look to the floor, and Nathan said "All it's going to take to fix that kind of stuff is practice. Give it a little time and effort, you'll get better."

Lee looked back up to him and said "So what now? What's the next lesson?"

Nathan put a hand to his chin and said "Well… I'll get back to you on that one. Tomorrow I'll have another ready, how about that?" he looked the woman up and down again before saying "you don't normally slouch like that, you must really be tired."

She gave him an incredulous look, pausing a moment before saying "You were fighting me for two hours, of course I'm tired!" His only response was a smirk. She rolled her eyes at him and turned to walk away. Nathan called out in a taunting voice as she left "See you tomorrow!" she made a rude gesture over her shoulder, and Nathan laughed. Maybe she would fight a little better if she was mad at him.

He turned away from the hall and started walking in a random direction, wondering what he should do next. There wasn't an awful lot of options. He wondered what Elsa was doing, and started to make his way to the library. He already knew that she was there, he had felt it using his shadow sense when following Lee's escapade.

The walk was quick, and he found himself before the door in no time. He put a hand against it, about to open it, when he stopped. He could hear something coming from inside that sounded like Elsa's voice. He pushed the door open slowly and strained his ears to hear the softly spoken words. Her voice was ridged and exact, like she was reading from something, but also quiet like she was half asleep. Nathan pushed the door open the rest of the way quietly, careful not to wake her if she was sleeping. Once the door was open enough for him to enter he squeezed through.

The room was lit by the large windows that allowed strong rays of sunlight through as well as a crackling flame in the fireplace, but those were the only two sources of light. Nathan knew that Elsa often preferred that the room be more thoroughly lit than this.

He followed the quiet sound of her whispers and found her curled up in the large seat. Her hand was over the cover of a book that looked old. Nathan stepped forward and looked at the faded title. It looked older than either of them. Nathan flipped through the pages briefly before determining that it was a book focused on the usages and deployment of troops. He felt his mood fall as he realized how she was probably feeling as she read this. If she was reading a book on how to manage troops during a battle than she must have had strong beliefs that she would need those skills soon.

Her hushed whispers stopped, and Nathan looked over to see Elsa's eyes starting to crack open. She looked up at Nathan, and said in a groggy voice as she pushed herself up from the chair "Hey, just the person I was looking for…"

* * *

Author's Thing:

I have the new chapter up! Woo!  
So you should totally, like, leave a review or something. yup.


	9. Chapter 9

Elsa sat up from her chair and blinked the sleep out of her eyes a minute before refocusing her vision on Nathan. He smiled back at her and said "What can I do for you?" in as cheery a voice as he could, and wincing at how obviously fake it sounded. Elsa seemed to appreciate the effort though, and returned his smile before pushing herself up, her hand knocking her book to the floor.

She looked to the book, and her face fell immediately. She gave a tired sigh and went to pick the book off the floor. Nathan bent down and took the boom for her, handing it over with a polite smile. She took the book and looked at it with a sad expression before looking back to Nathan. "I need your help." She said solemnly. Nathan nodded and sat down next to her, and she opened the book, flipping idly through the pages. "This book says that commanding troops is like a game of chess. "

Nathan nodded. He had heard that comparison before. Elsa shook her head and said "But… I don't want it to be. Those are people, fighting and dying, not just pieces on a board!" she gave a shaky sigh and closed the book again "I don't think I can do it. I can't just tell people to go fight and die." Nathan nodded again, then said "You were pretty calm and collected when Gothel attacked. It's just like that, except not against a force of magical gas people."

Elsa shook her head again and exclaimed "It's nothing like that! That was needed, Gothel was insane and she had to be stopped. The King of the Southern Isles is just plain stupid, and I don't want anybody to die because of it." Her voice seemed to fade as she realized what she was saying. She was suggesting the exact thing Nathan had been hoping she would accept all along. He spoke, taking her hand and saying "Let me go, and not a single citizen of Arendelle dies. I can stop this war before it even starts!"

Even as the words left his mouth he remembered what the Outsider had said to him. He couldn't stop the war, but he could change its outcome. Elsa gave another sad sigh and said "It just seems…. wrong, underhanded, to just send you over and have you wreak havoc on their internal affairs. Am I any better of a person if I just let that happen?" Nathan shrugged and said "If you let me go, you'll save hundreds of lives, on both sides of the conflict. And, if everything goes well, no one would even know who had done it. As long as I'm careful I can make everything can work out."

Silence passed between the two for a few moments before Elsa said "I just wish I knew what to do." in such a pained voice that Nathan didn't know what he could say to make her feel better. Instead of saying anything, he spread his arms wide and offered a hug to the depressed woman. She gladly accepted, throwing herself around him almost hard enough to knock him to the ground. He was able to stay on his feet, and the two stayed embraced like this for several seconds.

After the few seconds had passed, Elsa's grip on Nathan loosened and she said "Oh, I suppose it's about time I got up and did something useful, isn't it?" Nathan let go and stood again, guiding her by a hand up as well.

Nathan watched her as she started to walk off to do her royal duties that he had no ability to tolerate. Something inside of him wanted to follow, to help her in any way he could, but his mind told him that he would just get in the way. Now all he could really do was to wait for Elsa to give him the signal that the Southern Isles had gone too far, and then he would attack. He might not have the strength of an army, but he'd be damned if an army had the same effect he did. And his effect could shake an army apart, if he just waited for the right moment to leap from the shadows.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. It would do no use to build his ego up before undertaking a mission. When he had been a freelance killer that was something he had avoided like the plague. Nothing good would come of an overestimation of his abilities.

Instead he turned his thoughts to something more useful than that. He thought about how he could find and track down those in charge of whatever forces would be attacking Arendelle. The one in charge of the whole war would be easy enough, being the king, but Nathan wanted more specific targets, Generals, commanders, the people who would organize the battles themselves. Those would be the ones seeking to directly hurt Arendelle, and they would be the ones to taste Nathan's steel first. If attacks persisted, than he could move up the chain of command, and if the king was stubborn enough to continue his foolish war, than it would be his head on a pike next. After that there would likely be little left of the Southern Isles left to do war with. While the concept was distasteful to him, he couldn't help but feel a little hope that things would progress that far. There was something oddly therapeutic about imagining that fat king being stone-dead on the ground.

He shook his head again. His mind was difficult to rein in today. If he wanted to find leaders individually, he would need someone better than him at finding people. Lee was good at that. But she wasn't very good at the other skills that would be required if she were to accompany him. She needed to be stealthier, and probably be better in a stand up fight than she was. If he wanted to take her, than he would have to speed her training up than the slow pace it was taking now.

The door to the library shut, snapping Nathan back to reality. He took a few steps across the room before realizing that he didn't know where he was going. His stomach gave a growl for attention, and Nathan shrugged to himself. It was as good a goal as any right now. He set off towards the hall where he knew there would be food.

The walk through the halls was as uneventful as ever, a few servants nodding silently to him as they passed. Nathan returned their gestures with his own. After he made his way to the hall he spied Anna on the other side of the room, pushing the large door open and slinking into the room like she was hoping not to be seen. This caught his interest, and immediately he moved to intercept her. She kept looking around her, her eyes darting around nervously, like she was afraid of someone seeing her. In spite of this, she was making no apparent effort to avoid being seen by average servants who passed by her with puzzled looks on their faces. Nathan got the distinct feeling that the one she was avoiding was him. This only made him more curious as to why she was trying to sneak around.

He worked his way around the room to get behind her, stopping and hiding every time he gaze fell on him. In this fashion he was able to get almost directly behind her without her noticing. He stood there for a moment, savoring the moment, before he tapped Anna on the shoulder and cleared his throat. She jumped and gave a shout, turning at the same time.

Her eyes fell on Nathan and she put a hand to the center of her chest, letting out a deep breath as she did so. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!" she said indignantly. Nathan shrugged and gave her a devilish smile. "You looked like you were trying to keep hidden, so I figured that I should say hi."

She shook her head exasperatedly and continued walking, every trace of trying to stay clandestine now gone. Nathan followed her. "Why were you trying to avoid me?" he asked curiously. As soon as the words left his mouth Anna's demeanor changed. She started to rub her hands together and gave Nathan a very strange look. He raised his eyebrows, not sure how to respond, but it was clear that he had hit a nerve of some kind.

"Well…" her voice tapered off and she averted her eyes. This only made Nathan more curious. "I… was kind of… I was testing a new power." She finished the sentence like she had just thought of the answer. Nathan raised an eyebrow again and said "Anna, if you're going to lie to me you'll have to do a much better job than that." After a short pause Anna retorted with "I'm not lying! I'm just not telling you everything, that's all." Nathan rolled his eyes. She was either an incredibly bad liar, or just being facetious at this point. He would've said both, but if he had to choose one he would say the latter. He asked "Alright, so what's the rest than?"

Anna thought for a moment before seeming to perk up and say excitedly "Did you know that I can do something that Elsa can't? I can't wait to tell her that I figured out how to do it, all by myself! I bet she'll be so proud!"

Nathan smirked at how childish the girl was acting. It was almost like she was a small child. She still hadn't answered his question. He said "You still didn't answer. What did you do that made you want to hide from me?" Anna gave him another nervous look before saying "Did you know that I can pick locks with my magic?" Nathan was about to say that she had still not answered his question when something occurred to him.

The door that Anna had entered through was one that was close to Nathan's room. If she had been doing something in his room, it would explain why she was so hesitant to answer. He always tried to lock his door when he left it, and if Anna had just figured out how to pick locks, it was reasonable to assume that she had exercised this ability. Things in his room were locked up for a reason.

He put a hand to the side of his head and said "Anna, doors are locked for reasons. If you took anything from my room I need you to give it back." She held her hands up defensively and said "I didn't take anything! I might have touched the rune in the chest, but it scared me pretty badly and I ran away." Nathan was about to ask what she meant, but quickly found that he didn't care too much. He said with a sigh "As long as you didn't take anything I really don't care too much. Just ask next time you want to go after something in my room."

Anna nodded. "After the shock that rune gave me, I think I'll be sure to leave your room alone." Nathan nodded, convinced that she would. He didn't know what a rune could've done to scare her too much, but he didn't doubt that it could. Runes tended to have strange effects on people. Whatever Anna had experienced had probably been something Nathan had never heard of happening before. From the few people that he had talked to about runes and their various effects, none had ever described quite the same phenomena.

Nathan grabbed a plate and piled a good amount of food on top of it before walking off and finding an empty table and sitting down to eat. Anna looked at him from one of the other tables and gestured to an empty seat next to her. Nathan shook his head and went about his eating. He was feeling unusually pensive now, and he wasn't entirely sure why. He knew it had to do with what Elsa had said to him, but he didn't know who it seemed to be resonating with him so much.

The more thought he gave the matter, the more it seemed like he was forgetting something vital. No matter how hard he racked his brain for some minor detail, he could not find it. After a few minutes of this he gave up on uncovering the mystery, the detail was doomed to haunt him forever. Instead, he thought about what sort of resistance he would meet when assassinating the military leaders of the Southern Isles. He had nearly no information on the place, placing him at a severe disadvantage.

Even with this deficit of knowledge Nathan was at least confident in his ability to take the leaders out. They might be dressed in military garb, but they would die, just like the rest of the people whom Nathan had set out to kill.

He leaned back in his chair and stared blankly at the wooden table in front of him and the thoughts rushing through his head seemed to change from quick and intricate to slow and muddy. He shook his head a few times to try and clear the feeling away but enjoyed no success with his attempts. After a while he resigned himself to the possibility that perhaps he needed to take a break from critical thinking, no matter how much he disdained the thought. He got up from the table and walked towards the door that would take him to his room.

The doors closed behind him, and the walk through the halls was fast. Before long he found himself outside his room digging in a pocket for his key. He gave the doorknob an experimental twist to see if Anna had relocked it since breaking her way in, and was mildly surprised to find that it was indeed locked.

He unlocked it again and slipped inside. He looked around the somewhat barren room before grabbing a book off of the table next to the window and laying down to read. It was a rather quick transition from there that saw him wake up with a sudden jerk, flinging the book a few feet away and sending it skidding across the floor.

He turned to the window, and saw most of the sun's light was gone from the sky. With a small curse under his breath he got back to his feet and walked quickly to the door, pushing his way through and entering into the hallway. He was about to start down the hall when something occurred to him that stopped him dead in his tracks and look at the world around him.

Nothing seemed particularly out of place or unnatural, but in the dreams that the Outsider brought the signs were often subtle. In spite of his most vigilant searching, he found no sign that he had left his own world and entered into the Outsiders. He was indeed awake.

He started to walk down the hall, keeping his senses peeled for anything out of the ordinary. He wasn't sure where exactly he was going, but he had a feeling that something was wrong. He couldn't explain it, but the feeling that something was looming over him and the rest of the castle threateningly could not be dispelled.

The floorboards creaked under his weight every other step or two, but he paid little mind to the small noises as he tried to focus on what he was doing. If there was something lurking around in the castle he wanted to know about it before it knew about him. It wasn't long before Nathan felt his mind start to play tricks on him. Shadows seemed to dart from corner to corner, and he could swear that he heard whispers coming from every direction.

He knew these as his own imagination, but that didn't do anything to make them any less hair-raising. Nathan activated his shadow sense and immediately set about observing the area around him for any sort of hidden beings. He found none, and with this assurance his mind stopped manufacturing voices in the dark. He continued to walk the halls, figuring that he wouldn't be able to fall asleep after the rest that he had taken already.

Nathan walked his way through the halls slowly, taking in every detail as he went. He continued to do this for several minutes before deciding to take his search for Outsider-knew what upstairs. As he walked through the halls he passed numerous shadows moving slightly, the motions of sleeping servants or of the jittering and sputtering stump left of a candle that had been forgotten. He made a complete circuit of the second floor and, upon being satisfied with the results, made his way up to the final floor of the castle.

This floor being far smaller than the others made Nathan feel like a complete search was not necessary. Instead, he poured some of his power from the well inside of him into his shadow sense and made it expand, revealing the entire floor to him. A candle was burning brightly in Elsa's room, and Nathan was quick to take interest in what she was doing in there.

She sat on her bed, hunched over what Nathan assumed to be a pile of books and papers. He gave a small sigh as he started to walk towards her room. If it was late enough that the inside of the castle had gone to sleep, than it was too late for her to be up.

He knocked softly on the door and stepped back. The rustling of paper and sudden jerk of her shadow told him that his attempt to not startle her had failed. The door cracked open, and a beam of candlelight reflected off of one of Elsa's many crystalline constructs hanging from the ceiling assaulted Nathan's eyes, forcing him to hold up a hand between his eyes and the light to prevent himself from being blinded.

Elsa's voice said tiredly "Oh, sorry. Let me get that." After a half second pause the reflected beam was cut short, and Nathan was able to see once again. He saw Elsa looking at him from inside her room, a questioning look on her exhausted looking face. She rubbed an eye with the back of her hand briefly before blinking and asking "What are you doing up so late?"

Nathan raised an eyebrow and said "I could ask the same." He gestured into the room, inquiring if he could enter, and Elsa stepped aside, opening the door wider. He took a few steps in and directed his attention to the pile of things she had been looking at. The book she had been reading earlier was among the gathered documents and surrounded by similar looking texts, all piled on top and shoved to the side of a large map that depicted the entirety of Arendelle and the surrounding terrain. Several spots were marked on the map with large black dots, and labeled in fine black ink.

Elsa walked past him and pulled herself back into the position she had been in before he had intervened. Nathan walked over to the bed and took a light perch next to Elsa and inquired "What are you doing?"

With a heavy sigh, Elsa said "Making plans for when the Southern Isles attacks us." She pushed a few papers off of the corner of the map and pointed to the key, saying "The black dots are forts, the red ones are towns, and the black lines are roads." Nathan nodded. It was fairly clear that she was planning the defense of her country. He wondered if there was anything that he could do to help. From the slow and uneven pattern of her blinking and general body language he guessed that she wasn't in the best state of mind to handle a matter of such scale as that. He offered his help, and quickly found himself getting immersed in the process of establishing a strong defense. There was something interesting to him about planning with the ultimate goal of creating an impenetrable safe area. It felt like major role reversal to him.

It was about an hour later that Elsa slumped over against his shoulder, snoring softly. He grinned at the peaceful look on her face. Removing the pile of books and papers carefully, Nathan tucked her under the covers and started to exit the room. He was about to walk over the threshold of the door when something occurred to him. He walked back to the bed and pinched the candle out. The door closed softly, and Elsa was left in the peaceful darkness of her room, gathering much needed rest.

* * *

Author's thing:

The new chapter is now up. Celebrate the Friday.

Constructive criticism is appreciated.


	10. Chapter 10

Lee gave another nervous look around her as she and Anna sat at a table and ate their lunch. She had not seen Nathan all day, and it was starting to wear on her mind. She felt like he was watching her, and that her next lesson with him might begin without her foreknowledge and consist of something that she didn't really want to do. Every set of footsteps that passed behind her warranted a quick glance back and a very scrutinizing glare from her.

Anna was starting to take notice of Lee's nervous behavior, giving her strange looks and glancing around each time that she reacted to something nervously. She didn't see anything that would particularly set a person on edge, so she asked "Uh, Lee? Is there something wrong? Are you, like, waiting for someone or something?"

Lee turned her head at a somewhat startling speed and fixed her with a nervous glare before letting out a deep breath and thumping her head down on the table. Her voice was muffled as she spoke from this position, but she was still understandable. "I think I'm going insane." Anna raised an eyebrow and scooted her chair a bit closer, saying "Why? What's the matter? Is there anything I can do to help?" Lee shook her head, producing several unpleasant sounding squeaks from her skin on the wood. Her voice was muffled again "Nathan said that we would be doing more training today, but he hasn't show up all day. I feel like he's been watching me the whole time."

Anna nodded. She knew the feeling. Nathan seemed to take some irritating pleasure in making people paranoid. She couldn't blame him, she felt the same way when she was able to startle them, but she could blame him for being so good at it. She rubbed a hand on Lee's back comfortingly and looked around the room again. The door at the far end of the room opened and Nathan stepped through.

Anna stopped rubbing her back and started shaking Lee roughly, resulting in her making a few somewhat undignified noises before sitting back up and saying indignantly "What are you doing?" Wordlessly, Anna pointed a hand at Nathan and did her best to act nonchalant as she started to gather her food back up, preparing to leave. Lee saw what she was doing and gave her a look that was somehow both pleading and furious. This look did very little however, and it was not long before Nathan appeared from a small crowd with a plate and sat down. Anna got up and walked away, nodding to Nathan as she went.

He gave her a puzzled look as he sat down. "What's her hurry? Suppose she's got somewhere to be?" Lee shrugged, wishing that she could get up to follow her. She couldn't however, and was resigned to deal with whatever Nathan was about to pose as her as her next "lesson".

There were a few awkward minutes of silence where neither of the two said anything, Nathan simply eating his food and Lee simply dreading when he stopped. That time did come eventually, and her whole body tensed when it did. "So" Nathan said, setting his fork down and looking over at her "are you ready for today's lesson?"

Lee gave him a small nod and said "I suppose I have to be, don't I?" Nathan gave her an exasperated look and said "Oh, don't give me that. You asked me to do this so don't complain." Lee's response came quickly. She said "You didn't tell me there would be psychological torture involved! I've been scared out of my mind all say thinking that you would just pop out of a corner and throw something at me!"

Nathan's expression twisted slowly into a grin. "You really think I would do that?" he recalled when he had tried to get her to jump off of a roof. "You know what, don't answer that. Anyways, I've got something for you to do today! I'm sure that you are elated to hear that." She gave a small groan and said "Please just tell me it isn't another few hours of just combat practice."

Nathan laughed and said "No, nothing quite like that. You might hope that that was what you are doing, though. I've come up with something that should teach you to stay light on your feet in any situation." The look on Nathan's face made her nervous. If there was something that he thought she would prefer to do less than getting beaten by him, she didn't want to know what it was. Nathan shoved the plate of food away from him and stood, saying "Well, come on. Times wasting. Let's go."

Lee stood hesitantly and followed Nathan out of the room. He walked briskly, and it was difficult for her to keep up. Several times she tried to ask him where they were going, but the words simply refused to make their way out of her throat. Perhaps it was for the best, though. If she knew what she was going to she would probably not be willing to follow him at all.

It wasn't long before the pair came to an isolated hall that looked like it wasn't used very often. Across the floor were numerous shards of what looked like glass. Lee's face paled, mind racing with all the numerous possibilities of what torture Nathan could be planning for her.

She turned back to Nathan. He was watching her face with a broad smile. Lee knew that there was some trick to the whole thing, that Nathan wouldn't really have her walk over shards of glass, but even thinking about it made her skin crawl. She asked him nervously "I don't have to walk across this, right? I mean, I don't think that shredding my feet would be a very good-" Nathan cut her off by holding a hand up. When she fell silent he said "You do have to walk across it, but not barefoot. You are going to learn how to place your steps, as well as how to step lightly. Both are some of the most important things you can learn."

Lee breathed a small sigh of relief, than another thing occurred to her. "What if I fall down?" she asked in a voice that reminded her of when she had been a child. Nathan raised an eyebrow at her and said "If you fall down simply walking, than you deserve every cut you get from that fall."

Lee pouted. Just the kind of love and compassion she had been expecting form him. He held a hand out to the hall and said "Get to the other side and make as little noise as possible." Lee nodded. That was better than what she had had in mind. Nathan stepped back and fell totally silent, his arms folded and him leaning against the wall.

Lee put a foot forward and put a small amount of weight on it. There were a few small crackling sounds as more weight was put on the pieces, but not too much. The silence in the hall was almost deafening, and seemed to amplify each little sound the glass made to almost cringing volume. She placed her other foot forward onto the glass, and was startled by the amount of sound that emanated from the small pieces as her full weight was pushed onto them. She held the foot that hadn't yet touched the floor up and balanced on the one that was already touching. Clearly she was going to need to come up with another strategy to do this, walking and hoping they didn't make any noise was not a viable option.

She brought her other foot down and tried to step only on her toes. The pieces under the small point of contact crackled, but didn't make as much noise as the flatfooted step had. Something occurred to Lee as she did this, and she said over her shoulder "Where did you get all this glass? Someone is probably going to be really mad with you."

She was too focused to turn and look at him, but she could practically hear him wave dismissively and say "First of all that would require someone know that I put it here, which no one does. Second, I didn't just take random things made of glass and smash them, these were all pieces that were about to be thrown out anyways, I just smashed them up a little more. Third, I'm not just going to leave all of this here, I'll pick it up when you're done."

There was another loud crack from beneath her, and Nathan made full use of the opportunity, saying jokingly "Which, judging by this performance, won't be for a while." Lee tried to ignore him. He was right of course, she wasn't doing very well, but he was just trying to distract her.

Her practice lasted for what felt like a very long time, and finally ended when she was able to reach the other side of the hall without making what Nathan deemed to be "too much noise". The trick, as she found out, was to step only in spots that had very little glass in them, and to never put all her weight into one spot. Even if she had to try and distribute her weight to two different places on the same foot, that was what she had to do.

Nathan congratulated her, and the first thing that she did was lean her back against the wall and slide down, pulling her leg up to examine the bottoms of her shoes. She had started to feel very nervous near the end when she had thought she felt small pinpricks on the bottom of her feet. There were several small pieces still stuck to her, now somewhat embedded in the shoe, but she was able to get them out with the use of her nails and a few hearty slams on the floor. Overall it seemed that there wasn't too much damage to the shoes, but there were without a doubt more cuts and markings than there had been before.

She looked up to find Nathan with a broom, sweeping the multitude of glass shards into a pile which he then swept into a box. He picked the box up and turned to her, giving a quizzical look and asking "What are you doing?" In response she hold one leg up towards him and gave it a brush with a finger to indicate the new damage. He rolled his eyes and said "Well, it's better than your feet, isn't it?" She couldn't disagree with that.

Nathan started to walk away, shaking the box so that the glass made a grating racket and saying loud enough to be heard over the glass "We'll meet again tomorrow for something. I'll have something else by then."

Lee was about to ask if they were going to do the combat training that she had "enjoyed" yesterday, but thought better of it. If Nathan had forgotten about it, than there was no chance she was going to remind him. The glass in the box made a few more loud noises, but they faded away as Nathan walked. She watched him go, praying the whole time that he didn't stop, turn around, and say something.

He disappeared around a corner, and Lee felt immense relief. She still had bruises from the last time she had tried to take him down. She cast another small mournful glance at her shoes before walking away from the hall and wondering what she would do now. Her mind wandered as she walked through the halls for a while before she thought of Anna again. They had had several pleasant conversations recently, and she wanted to continue talking. Anna might have been somewhat scatterbrained, but it really ended up working in her favor. It made her a nicer person overall.

Lee sort of envied her, in a weird way. She didn't necessarily want anything that she had, she just wanted to be more like her. She was so happy all the time, so lighthearted, albeit a bit airheaded at times. It was like she had some kind of natural resistance to sadness and pressure. She wished that she could have the same. Instead, however, the weight of things about to happen felt heavy on her shoulders. She wanted to help, hoping that that would relieve some of it.

It took her a few minutes to find Anna again, asking various staff around the castle if they had seen her. She finally tracked the girl to her room, and knocked on the door, hoping she wasn't interrupting anything important. The door opened, Anna standing in the doorway giving Lee a quizzical look. Lee gave her a sincere smile and said "Hi! I was just wondering it maybe you had time to talk?"

Anna responded with a smile and backed into her room, ushering Lee in as she went. She followed her, and closed the door behind her. Anna took a seat on her bed, and Lee sat in a chair across from it. "So" Anna said "what can I do for you?" Lee shrugged and said "Well… I don't really know. I'm just not really feeling too great right now. I was wondering if you might be able to cheer me up or something."

Anna got a concerned look on her face, and said "Oh, what's wrong?" Lee sighed and resettled herself in the chair. "I don't know. I just feel like there's a lot of stuff looming over us right now, and I feel like nothing good is going to come out of it. This whole war thing, it all just seems so stupid and pointless. A lot of bad things are going to happen for no reason."

Anna nodded. "I agree. Elsa agrees to. No one really wants there to be a war. I think Elsa said that she was going to send Nathan to do something about it. I don't really want to think about what he might do about it." Anna's expression changed to one slightly sadder and she said "It's just such a shame that the king of the Southern Isles won't see reason. Elsa has tried to talk him down, but he has just ignored her every time. I don't know why he can't just see that we aren't doing any harm over here. All because my sister was born different than everyone else, he thinks that she is nothing but evil!"

Lee was slightly taken aback by the girl's outburst. She didn't know what to say. It was obvious that Anna was pretty on-edge about this issue. She replied weakly "Yea, right." Anna's eyes widened as she seemed to realize that she had just reacted quite violently. She immediately put a hand to her mouth and said "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to… uh… anything else you wanted to talk about?"

Lee shifted in her seat, now finding herself uncomfortable. "How are you learning your powers?" she asked in a desperate attempt to make things a little less awkward between the two. Anna looked glad for the opportunity and said "Oh, it's going great! I've gotten a lot better control, and I can do way more stuff than I could at first! The only thing that I've had trouble with so far though is speed. I can't really just make things happen like Elsa does, I have to focus a lot more on it." Lee nodded. She had noticed the increase in Anna's abilities.

Silence filled the room for several seconds before being broken by Anna, who asked "What do you think of Nathan?" Lee raised an eyebrow at her, and she clarified "I mean as a person, you know, what kind of person you think he is? I know that you haven't really known him for very long, but neither me nor Elsa have seen him while he's… "working". What is he like?"

Thinking back to that time made Lee's spine tingle. It seemed like so long ago, and she had been such a different person. She shook her head and focused of the question. "He was… it was weird. At first he was really persuasive and adaptive, just sort of rolling with the punches. He fooled me into thinking that he wanted to join Gothel so that I would take him to her. I don't know exactly what happened after that, but it must have been pretty big, because it wasn't long before Gothel had to run out of the tower she had been living in with a pretty big stab wound in her ribs. I don't know exactly what happened, but there were a lot of powerful followers of Gothel up in that tower, and none of them came back out."

Anna nodded. That was pretty close to what she had been expecting to hear; quick, deceptive, and more than a little bit mysterious. She still had a kind of morbid curiosity tough, and decided to keep asking. "Didn't he catch you after she got out of the tower?" Lee nodded, and Anna asked "What did he do then? Obviously he didn't do anything too bad, but how did he change?"

Lee thought back to that event and found the memories more than willing to resurface with utmost clarity. "It was scary. He was like a totally different person. He grabbed me and started shouting, asking me questions, and I was sure he was going to kill me. When he started dragging me back to Corona on a horse I was terrified. Than we got to the docks, and we saw the ship that Gothel used to attack you, and something changed again. He went from being in a rage to staying quiet. I didn't know him at that point, but I could tell that he was coming up with a plan. He put a knife to my throat and said that he wanted to kill me, but dropped me. Then he just… disappeared. And not like he normally does, I mean he was just gone. I guess he got back here somehow before Gothel did, because I hear that he was a pretty big part in that defense."

Anna nodded "He was. I wasn't really involved with that discussion, but I think that the whole plan for Else to freeze the fjord again was his idea. When he came up and found Elsa… neither of them really told me what happened, but the room was pretty busted up. Elsa killed Gothel, and as soon as he knew that she was alright, he was out of the room, attacking Gothel's people again. From what I heard from a few of the soldiers who saw it, there wasn't much of a fight. Apparently he just covered them in shadow so that no one could see anything and jumped right into the middle of them. When the shadow disappeared he was walking away from a pile of bodies, covered in blood."

The hair on the back of Lee's neck stood up, and she thought to herself that this talk was resembling the retelling of ghost stories around a fire. "So how did you meet him? I mean, I know how he just kind of showed up, but how did you personally meet him?"

Anna looked down for a moment, thinking, before looking up and saying "It had to have been when…no, no I'm sure that I saw him before that. It… was… in the courtyard. It had to be." She nodded to herself than said "The courtyard was frozen over into a skating rink, and I saw him just walking across the ice no problem. That's something I could never do, and something that I hadn't seen many other people before either. I went over to complement him, but Elsa pulled me away before we could really talk." She scratched her head, seeming to just realize something before saying "He was really awkward with me, like he didn't know what to say. He might not have known that I was the princess, but I don't think that that should have surprised him all that much."

Lee felt a small grin creep across her face as she said "Maybe he liked you." in a semi-joking voice. Anna snickered and said "Oh, of course. Head over heels for me." The two laughed.

They talked for a long time. How long, Lee lost track. When finally she left the Princess's room she felt that some of the weight was lifted from her. She started to walk the halls again, looking for something new to do. Her mind wandered to her practice bout with Nathan again as one of the muscles in her back started to ache again. She thought of where she might be able to get a practice blade. She was going to do her best to not make it so easy for Nathan the next time.

* * *

Author's Thing:

I know that time between new chapters is increasing, but cut me a break, I wrote a chapter for that RWBY thing I've been doing that was like 7,000 words long.

So just, uh, regular routine. Thanks for reading and stuff.


	11. Chapter 11

Lee gripped the dagger's hilt in her fingers tightly as she knelt down and kept her breathing as quiet as possible. Everything, even a pin hitting the floor, would be heard by her. Nathan was somewhere in the halls, and it was her job to not let him hit her. She was also supposed to hit him with the dagger if she could. She somehow doubted that she would get that opportunity.

The floor creaked somewhere behind her, and she jerked to face it. There wasn't anything readily visible, but with Nathan that didn't tend to mean a whole lot. She looked to her side and found a door. Pushing the door open, she rushed inside, figuring that her chances were better in a closed room instead of the wide open hallway. The door closed behind her, and she found herself in a servant's quarters with no one in it. There was a slow burning candle in one corner still going and she huddled up close to it, keeping an eye in the shadows flickering across the walls.

Footsteps started to hit heavily on the floorboards outside of the door. Lee's body tensed and she clutched the dagger a little harder, ready to use it if Nathan came oozing out from under the door. The door handle turned and Lee reacted immediately, looking around until she saw the bed. Acting as quickly as she could to avoid Nathan, she threw herself under the bed and pulled her legs up to her chest so that she was completely hidden. The door opened, and a pair of boots that didn't belong to Nathan stepped in.

She cursed silently to herself. If she had overreacted so drastically and ended up getting trapped in a room, pinned down because explaining why she was in the stranger's room would likely be harder than actually sneaking out. The person took a few steps inside before stopping and turning to mess with something in a cabinet.

Something that Nathan had told her came back to her. "When people are distracted is the best time to make a move." It seemed like simple advice when he had said it, but there was something about the situation now that made it a little harder to follow. The man was very close to the door, and if he so much as looked over his shoulder than she would be reviled. Such a small movement would lead to such an awkward situation.

Rewards didn't come without risks though, and she didn't want to wait in this room until this man either fell asleep or finished whatever it was that he was here doing. The only option was to try. She slinked out from under the bed as carefully as she could, and made towards the door. Her foot fell badly, and made a small scuffing noise. The man stopped shuffling around in his cabinet for a moment and listened. Lee started sweating, certain that he would hear the pounding of her heart.

Luckily enough, he seemed to dismiss the noise and return to whatever he was doing. Lee had to consciously stop herself from breathing a sigh of relief. She kept on creeping past the man, careful now to keep each step carefully placed. Her back slowly pushed up against the door and she straightened back up, feeling behind her for the doorknob. She found it, and gave it a measured twist. It made a small amount of noise, but not enough to set any suspicion off. The door unlatched quietly and she slipped through.

Now back in the hallway she felt some of the tension drain from her. It returned quickly however, when she remembered that Nathan was still stalking her. For all she knew he could have watched that whole ordeal from some hidden spot. The thought made her skin crawl and prickle uncomfortably. She knew that if she couldn't take a single room and make use of them only having a single entrance, than she would just have to keep moving. She had tried to take a single room, and that had not worked out.

She started walking down the hall, straitening up and walking slowly so that she might hear someone approaching. She didn't know where to go. Nathan had told her that she had to stay inside the castle, which knocked down the number of places she could hide quite significantly.

Nathan knew this. It was something that he had explained when she had protested that the challenge was completely unfair. He had said that if she successfully hid from him, than she was far better than she thought. She had accepted this explanation, but only begrudgingly. She knew that there was no real way for her to hide from him. She wasn't sure how she had avoided him for as long as she had.

She turned a corner and found Anna walking towards her. Both looked mildly surprised, but Anna smiled and said cheerfully "Hi Lee! What's up?" she saw her slightly worried expression and asked more seriously "What's the matter?" Lee shook her head. Nathan hadn't said that she couldn't enlist help from others.

"Are you doing anything important right now?" she asked hopefully. Anna shook her head, and Lee said "Great! Do you think that you could help me with something tight now? I'm trying to hide from Nathan, and I think it would be a great help of you would help look out for him." Anna raised an eyebrow and looked around, saying "Really? I don't see him. I guess I could help, sure."

Lee gave an exasperated sigh and said "Its Nathan, do you really think you would see him? Anyways, I'm looking for somewhere I can go where he would have a hard time sneaking up on me. Any ideas?" Anna thought for a second before suggesting "The library maybe? That's where I was going before running into you. Maybe you could convince Elsa to help you to."

Lee nodded. The more the merrier. Anna started walking, and she followed behind, keeping a close watch behind them. She could tell that Anna was starting to get on edge from the way that she was acting. That was fine by her. The more alert she was, the less chance there was that Nathan would be able to jump them.

The two reached the library without any real incident. There were several times when they saw shadowy figures just out of the corners of their eyes that disappeared as soon as they tried to look directly at them, but these were dismissed as being only figments of their imagination brought on by their nerves. When at last they pushed the door to the library open they found Elsa sitting, a book in her lap, gazing out the large windows absentmindedly.

They were both very glad that Nathan was not at least immediately visible. The door shut with a dull thud behind them, causing Elsa to look over at them. "Hey Anna" she said in a distracted voice as she looked back down at her book. Anna and Lee walked towards her, both pairs of eyes darting around the room nervously. "Elsa, do you think that you could help us with something?" The queen raised an eyebrow and said "I suppose that would depend on what you would ask of Me." in a mildly amused voice. Anna rolled her eyes at her sister's non-answer.

Lee stepped forward now, saying "Nathan had me agree to a training exercise and it's really starting to freak me out. He said I had to avoid him for as long as possible, and I think that it's starting to drive me crazy. Everywhere I look I'm starting to see silhouettes just fading, and I feel like he's watching me. I just need you to… well… help somehow."

Without looking up Elsa put a hand out towards the door, and streamers of ice went flying out. A thick layer of clear blue ice formed on top of the door, sealing it shut. "There" she said "he can't get in. Please, try and be quiet, would you?" She held her book up "I'm trying to read here."

Anna and Lee agreed to try and be silent before splitting up and finding books that interested them. Lee sat on the floor near the fireplace, book in one hand and the small knife she had been given clutched in a white knuckle grip in the other. Nathan wouldn't catch her off guard.

It wasn't long before the knife had slipped out of her hand and become content to lay beside her. She was absorbed in the book she was reading, but still felt that she had more than enough awareness of her surroundings to respond if Nathan found his way in somehow. Whether she did or not was something she didn't want to think particularly hard about. It made her feel uncomfortable.

Suddenly, making all three women jump, a loud thump against the frozen door rang out, making some of the ice coating crack slightly. It didn't look like It had been hit with any particular force, but someone had certainly tried to get inside. They all looked up towards the door, waiting for the next strike. They didn't have to wait long, as another came within seconds, breaking small pieces of ice off of the door and sending them skittering across the floor.

A voice came through the door, muffled by the ice in the way. "My Queen, are you alright?" The voice was very obviously not Nathan's. Elsa gave Anna an annoyed look for making her seal the door and pulled the ice away, letting it fade into the air. She called "Yes, I'm fine, come in." The door opened slowly, and a guard was pushing the door open slowly and hesitantly.

He looked at Elsa before she could speak and said "My Lady, I'm afraid I come bearing bad news." Elsa stood and gave the man a worried look as she recognized the patch on the man's arm. "Oh" she said like she was afraid "don't tell me…"

The man bowed his head and said "I'm afraid that we have come under attack, your Highness. Fort Borhus has come under attack by the Southern Isles. We are holding the enemy off, but our forces are starting to buckle. We require reinforcements immediately. That fort is the first line of defense for the South, losing it would be a catastrophic blow." Elsa nodded, putting a hand to her forehead. "Yes, yes, I know. I… how many are there?" the man replied "The last estimate was amid seven hundred to a thousand men." Elsa's face paled, and she said "send the first regiment to go and help them." She was glad that she and Nathan had gone over the plans for what they would do in case of an incident like this.

The man nodded and said "Will that be all, or do you plan to send more, your Highness?" Elsa thought for a moment. What she already sent would be able to match the troops of the Southern Isles, but men would die. She wished that there was a way that could be avoided. Then suddenly, startling everyone in the room, Nathan appeared next to Elsa, giving her a pleading look. Lee scrabbled briefly for the knife before realizing that under the circumstances her lesson was probably postponed.

"Elsa, send me. You know what good I can do! All you have to do is say the word, and I could save so many o four people!" His request was impassioned, and its effect on Elsa was obvious. She looked towards the floor, than as Nathan and said "What about you? What if you're killed? I couldn't stand if you were to die." Nathan put a hand on Elsa's shoulder and pulled her into a hug. "Trust me" he said in her ear "I don't want to die either." He then held her at arm's length, looking her in the eyes and said "But come on! Do you really think that I would die there? Like that? I don't even have to be involved in the battle itself. There has to be a general giving orders for the attack, and that's who I'll go after."

Elsa gave him an uncomfortable look before nodding and saying "I guess I can't keep you here in good conscious. If you want to help, than go. Just… be quick." Nathan gave her a confident smile and said "I'll be back before you know it."

He turned to the guard and said "How far away is this place?" The man swallowed and said "It's about two hours south of here. I was going to return with the main reinforcements, but I suppose I could take you if you are ready to go." Nathan looked through several of his pockets for a few moments to make sure that he had everything he would need for the little escapade before saying "Yes, I'm ready. Let's get a move on."

The man saluted and said "Yes sir." before bowing to Elsa and turning to leave. Nathan looked to Lee and said "You keep her safe." pointing to Elsa in a deadly serious tone. He had trained her for a while, and she was at the point where Nathan had confidence that she could at least keep Elsa safe until someone else came to help. Nathan turned back to Elsa and bulled her into another tight hug, planting a kiss on her cheek. "I promise I'll be back in no time."

With that, he turned to leave. The man started to walk ahead of him, leading him out of the castle. In barely any time at all, Nathan was mounted up on a horse and riding out at a fast pace, trailing behind the guard as he lead the way to the fort. It was only a minute before they exited Arendelle and entered onto the road leading out. Nathan's body felt tense and uncomfortable. Stalking someone like he had Lee could only get one so limber. She was so lax and inattentive that he could probably could've blinked directly in front of her and away again before she noticed. The issue was that she didn't know what to look for. Things that would be obvious tells of someone following her that she simply overlooked.

Nathan shouted forward to be heard over the wind tearing through his ears "What was the situation when you left?" The man ahead of him slowed his horse slightly and fell back next to Nathan before responding "Not too bad. The forces of the Southern Isles had been driven back from the fort when I left, but were preparing for another assault. The fort was holding up alright, but men were starting to get fatigued from the fighting, and injuries were beginning to pile up. I was sent by the fort commander to get reinforcements before the casualties became too severe."

Nathan nodded. The next question came from the man, who asked "Sir, is it true? The rumors about you, I mean. I've heard that you can do impossible things, kind of like the Queen. I didn't believe them at first, but when I saw you… just pop out of nowhere like it was nothing, I started thinking that maybe there was some truth in those rumors." Nathan smiled at his skepticism. "Yes, it is true. You saw it yourself, didn't you? Though, if all goes well, like I hope it will, no one will see my powers at all."

The man looked confused by this answer but took it without question. Now with only the wind in his ears, Nathan started to brood over a plan. If the army of the Southern Isles were attacking the fort from one side, than finding the commander would be relatively easy. If they had it surrounded, than he would have to do a little more scouting. If there was anything along the way that he could damage to potentially cripple future attacks, he would do so with the utmost glee.

But as for the Commander themselves, there wasn't much planning he could do in advance. Everything he did would be dependent on how they were situated; if they were on the front lines or not, if they had guards, there was simply too much to take into account. He let out a deep breath and cleared his mind out, allowing his thoughts to flow much more freely. He would take it as it came.

One long horse ride and the guarantee of painful saddle-sore later, he could hear the pounding of cannons and the crack of musket fire in the distance. Smoke rising above the tree line told Nathan that something had defiantly happened in the battle that was important to somebody, but to who he couldn't guess. As he continued to get closer, the fort came into view. He could see why the call for help had not been very urgent, all things considered. The fort was a large wooden structure sitting atop a hill with thickets of trees on either side, the trees close enough to slow someone's progress through, but far enough to allow fire from the fort through. The sides of the hill were very steep, making any attempt to run past the fort very unlikely to succeed. If someone was to enter Arendelle from this way, taking the fortress would be a necessity.

His guide held up a hand and pulled his horse to a stop. Nathan did the same, coming to a stop just next to him. He asked the man "What's the hold up? Something to see?" The man shook his head and said "No, we should stop in the fort first, and talk to the captain. He's the best person you could talk to if you wanted to find something specific in their army." Nathan agreed. Going blind into an enemy army was likely not the best idea.

The two approached the fort gingerly, not wanting to appear enemies. It was several minutes before someone looked over the wall and waved to them, shouting a greeting. Nathan's guide responded, and soon enough a gate was opened, and they were ushered quickly inside. As they were taken in another barrage of cannon fire started to pound the earth and nearby the sides of the fort. Nathan was ushered inside of the fort's main building and found a man in the standard uniform with a large ornate badge on his chest to denote his authority.

The man looked up at Nathan and said "Are you in charge of the reinforcements?" Nathan gave him an apologetic smile and said "Unfortunately not. I am here to help, though. Consider me as assassin for the time being. If you could point me to the general, or whoever is organizing these attacks, I would greatly appreciate it."

The commander nodded and said "I suppose I could use you, yes. Alright. I will tell you where he is, but you need to take care of a few other things first. Even if the man driving this army is dead, they will continue coming for a time, and I would like to avoid as many casualties as possible. So, I ask you, would you be willing to go after some other targets?"

Nathan shrugged just as a cannonball impacted somewhere nearby and made the building shake. A few gains of wood dust fell from the ceiling and onto a table in front of the man that had a large map on top of it. He took this as a yes, and leaned onto the table starting to indicate various points on the map. The first was a raised spot clear of trees, not higher than the fort but enough to have a clear shot at it.

Nathan nodded. That shouldn't be too hard, if he directed his path through the lines of their artillery. The commander continued, saying "After you take them out, than we can hold off their attacks without much issue. This is good for us, but might not be so good for you. When you do that, they'll likely break off their attack and retreat. If you want to take down their leader, you'll have to be quick. Do you think you can handle that?"

Nathan gave the man a very confident smile. "I think if I can't do that than I've lost my touch." The commander nodded and said "You've got my blessings. A lot of people would be real grateful if you hurry up."

Nathan turned and started to walk away without another word. As the door opened and let a burst of cold air in, a shout came from somewhere inside the fort. "Another charge incoming! Get ready!" Nathan was about to ask a passerby if there was anything that he could do to help with the immediate situation when a cannonball went screaming only a few feet over his head and slammed into the structure behind him. It wasn't damaged too badly, but large cracks started to form in the beams that supported the most weight. Nathan took this as a cue as to his job. They didn't need him at the fort, here he would just be another gun. He needed to take those cannons.

* * *

Author's Thing:

Man, I feel like nothing has been happening in this story as of late. Let's change that, shall we?


	12. Chapter 12

Another round of cannonballs slammed their way into the fort, causing everything to shake. Nathan ducked down in hopes of evading any projectiles that might be hammering their way towards him. A few musket balls went whizzing over him, and he knew that there would be little to no chance that he could get through on a straight shot. Instead, he looked to the side of the fort, where there was far less dangers.

He couldn't see over the wall, but by the men standing and facing away from it he assumed that there was little of immediate concern on the other side. Taking a running start, Nathan jumped, going soaring into the air, feet barely clearing the very wall before being pulled back towards the earth. His jump carried him further than he expected, and he found himself coming down onto a far steeper plane than he had expected. He braced himself, and slid down the steep incline of the hill and found himself nearly buried beneath snow displaced by his body.

He quickly thrashed his way out from beneath the freezing layers of snow and righted himself, taking stock of his surrounding to offset the disorientation of the fall. A small lead ball landing a few inches from his foot encouraged him to do this elsewhere, and he did, running through the snow at the trees. A few more shots spun past him, but he paid little attention, his mind focused of reaching a safe spot. He got to the tree line and hid behind one of the larger trees. A few stray shots collided with the tree, sending small shards of bark flying, but attention seemed to leave him quickly.

With no more shots directed towards him, Nathan looked out from behind his cover. There was a solid line of infantry slowly advancing through the snow, firing on the fort the whole way. Many were falling under the hail of lead from the man defending the fort, but they sallied on undaunted. Artillery rained down on the fort from afar, forcing many on the walls to keep down carefully. A few men amid the forces of the enemy were mounted on horseback, shouting orders to the man around them. Nathan knew that taking them out would do much for the defenders, but charging directly into the ranks of the enemy army would not be an incredibly good idea.

Instead, he looked behind them. The tracks behind the army were leading back over a hill, and continuing off in that direction Nathan could see large plumes of white smoke billowing up in accordance to the cannon blasts. That would be hit first stop. After that he would find the general commanding the attack.

He started creeping through the trees, giving the army a wide berth so that he wouldn't be spotted and called out. There was less snow between the trees than out in the open, so he moved through it quickly. The sound of shouting and weapons continued hammering their way through the trees, some even strong enough to shake snow from the branches above him.

After a few minutes of creeping, he found himself easily within visual range of the artillery setup. The men working the cannons were shouting to each other, coordinating their firings, as well as to a large number of men behind them delivering supplies in a hurried manner. Immediately Nathan started looking for things he could do to disable the guns. The first thing was the most obvious; kill the men, but they could be replaced, and it was better to be safe than sorry in matters such as this. If he wanted to be extremely through, he could find and destroy whatever stockpiles of supplies they were drawing from. He could follow the man running the supplies to do that.

Actions now planned, Nathan started to make his way out of the deep tree line and to the outskirts, where being spotted was more likely. A quick look around reviled that there were nearly no guards around the cannons. He took this as meaning that the attack was very frontloaded. Good for him, but very bad for the men in the back lines he would be attacking.

A shout rang up from one of the cannons, and another round of shots started to blast. Nathan knew that this was an excellent opportunity, and charged out from the trees, the shattering bass of the cannons and rolling smoke making his approach completely. Before the barrage was even over, Nathan was upon the men. He wasted no time silencing each as quickly as he could, a flurry of carefully placed strikes to the necks and throats of his victims and extremely hasty blinks from one group to another bringing their lives to their ends quickly. By the time the last cannon had fired its payload and the smoke started to clear, all that was left of the men were their corpses draped over the weapons that they had so diligently operated, slowly leaking their crimson lifeblood out onto the pure white snow, tainting it.

A shout was heard behind Nathan, and he turned to see a man scrambling off the side of a cart. The cart was filled with black powder and cannonballs, along with a few rifles and shot. Nathan immediately sprinted after the man, knowing that an alarm being raised further than the artillery stopping could very well convince whoever was commanding this attack to order a retreat. That would accomplish what he was sent here to do, but it felt wrong somehow to let them get away.

In spite of Nathan's superior physical abilities, the man running had a significant head start, and he wasn't confident that he could catch up before the man reached something else that might draw even more of a force to him. He blinked to shorten the distance, and immediately felt a sharp pain shoot through deep in his chest, up his spine, and stop in his skull. He had almost completely exhausted himself in the first fight. He didn't let this halt his progress towards the runner however, and redoubled his efforts, legs pumping like pistons to carry him faster. After a few seconds he was well within arm's reach of the man and shot a hand out, grabbing a hold of his collar and stopping.

The man made a choked gasping noise as all the force that was moving him forward was suddenly transferred into his throat, and his legs fell out from under him. Nathan held his blade ready to send it through his neck, when their eyes met. He had looked into the eyes of people he killed before, but it had never quite affected him like this. The closest thing to it that he could compare it to would be when he let Lee survive, but even that hadn't made him feel like he did now. It was like a wave of guilt smothered him. These men were following the orders of someone under orders from someone under orders. These were not the man at fault for the death and losses. But he couldn't just let this man run off.

He pulled him back and wrapped an arm around his neck, squeezing as hard as he could. The man struggled for a few seconds before falling limp against Nathan's grasp. He let the unconscious body fall to the ground, mostly unharmed. He cast his gaze back to the ground cluttered with dead bodies, now regretting his quick action. There was no feasible way that he would be able to hide all the corpses. They would have to just sit until they were either cleaned up or rotted. He would just have to hope that no one saw them and decided to raise an alarm. He looked back to the cart, and more specifically to the tracks behind the cart. They led off towards another small source of smoke in the distance. Whatever stockpile they were getting supplies from was clearly in that direction.

Nathan walked back to the tree line and moved through the snow again, following the tracks as he went. Several times along the way another cart carrying the supplies passed by him, and each time he ducked behind another tree and stopped moving. As the carts passed, and the men driving them continued trundling past, Nathan wondered what they would think when they found the results of his work. He could feel the power that he had expended slowly returning, but it was a slow drip of a faucet, barely noticeable in the face of how much he still had to get back. He doubted that he even had enough to get a single blink off again. The pain that had shot through his chest and head came back into his mind, and he knew that he didn't want to feel that again.

It was several more minutes of this occasionally jumping behind trees and waiting before carrying on his way before something came into his view. A small cabin, with lights in its windows and smoke rolling out of its chimney, sat at the bottom of a hill, with large piles of barrels full of powder and shot, as well as a large number of troops surrounding it. Another cart of supplies was being loaded up, the fourth one that Nathan had seen. The commander must have been spurring the cannons to fire with greater intensity than they had been. As soon as the first runner came back with the unfortunate news, he imagined that those supply lines would stop.

He was just starting to edge his way closer to the house when one of those runners started to come back. He only just heard the pounding of the horse's hooves against the ground beneath the snow soon enough to pull himself behind a tree and peak out to see the man coming. He was leaning into the horse, giving it some very hard kicks to urge it into going faster, a panicked and wild look in his eyes.

As he went rushing past Nathan, kicking snow into the air behind him, Nathan emerged from his hiding spot and resumed his approach. He had to get into as good a position as he could to get in that house and hopefully kill the commander before the alarm went up and the man knew that Nathan was coming for him. He sped his pace through the trees, even using the snow beneath his feet to slide faster than he could walk, using trees on the incline to stop himself from getting too fast and making too much noise.

The man reached the house first, predictably, and started to scream and shout about something horrible happening up at the artillery line. The door to the house was opened quickly, and he went rushing inside. The door shut behind him, and Nathan knew that his time being clandestine was running very short now. The guards around the building were all dispersed in such a way that an approach of the building remaining unseen would be almost impossible. He cast his eyes around for any way that he might subvert or avoid the guards. His seconds of hesitation was enough for the man who had run into the house so scared came back out, screaming "Ready your weapons! Assassin!"

Nathan ducked back behind his tree, cursing to himself. The shouts rose between the guards before he heard all of them draw their swords, pistols, and rifles and make themselves into a formation that closed any possible gaps in the defense. He peaked back out from behind his tree and got a look at the men. They were all standing, looking nervously around for any sign that might tell them where he was. He didn't give them any suck sign, instead staying behind his tree and considering what might be done to circumvent them further. His gaze wandered around for several seconds before walking up the tree and examining the branches far above him. They stuck out at slight upward angles, and in warmer months might have had leaves on them, green or the variety of colors that fall brought.

Nathan rubbed a hand against the trunk of the tree, testing to see of it would make any great deal of noise if he were to try and climb it. The bark beneath his hands seemed sturdy enough, and the tree was wide enough to keep him hidden if he were to try ascending its side. There were no leaves on the branches to offer any cover if he were to reach them, and there was also no guarantee that he would be able to reach the rooftop of the house safely from the branches. With another careful glance at the guards, he determined that unless he felt like killing another twenty five to thirty man, the tree was the only way for him to go.

With as strong of a leap as he could muster, he soared up about fifteen feet and wrapped his arms around the tree, scrabbling for any holds that might allow him to keep his place. His hands and feet found such things, knots and holes in the bark, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. Looking down at the ground and judging how far he had come up, then looking up at the branches he wanted to reach, he determined that it would take two more jumps of the same size to bring him there.

He jumped (an awkward thing to do when clinging to a vertical surface) and again scrabbled for any handhold that he could find. He found them without losing any progress, and did it again. This time instead of looking for anything that he might latch onto in the bark, he went straight for the branches, the possibility that they might not be strong enough to hold him only occurring to him a second before his fingers wrapped around it and the full weight of his body was put into the wood.

It bent and creaked quietly, but it was not loud enough to pull any attention up to him. Nathan pulled himself up onto the limb and started to inch is way out towards its end. If he were to lose his balance it was likely that he wouldn't be able to save himself before hitting the ground. This thought only made his grip on the branch tighten as he worked himself out. As he got further and further out, the limb bowed under his weight. He reached the end of where he felt the limb start to splinter. The house wasn't nearly as close as he might like it to be, but he didn't have much in the way of other options.

The roof of the small house was below him, close enough to make the fall, but far enough to hurt. He didn't know if the drop would do any real damage or not. He doubted it, but only if he was careful. Then there was noise to think about. The sound of him hitting the roof would likely be enough to draw some attention to him, at which point he would have to act quickly to take out the commander and get away. If he didn't than he would have to fight his way out, and he doubted that he had the ability to kill so many trained soldiers.

He looked critically at the roof. There was smoke coming from the chimney, so there must have been a fire going. Judging by the amount of smoke however, it couldn't have been a big fire. If he were to go down the chimney and exit quickly, he could probably get the jump on the commander without getting burned too badly. Than he could take a gun from inside and use it to explode the stockpiles. Perhaps not his most elegant plan, but it would do.

He started edging his way just a little further, contemplating how he would drop. If he jumped, he would run the risk of breaking the limb, bringing attention to himself immediately. It would make more sense if he dropped off. It wouldn't add any unnecessary height to his drop, and would make his landing slightly easier to control. And so, with one last deep breath, he slipped from the tree and went plummeting towards the earth.

His feet met with the wood of the ceiling, and immediately something he hadn't considered started to happen. The wood splintered and broke under his sudden weight. He couldn't see through the solid wood that hadn't shattered yet, and so he had no clue as to where he was going to land or what was under him. A few shouts came from inside, and he felt something much softer than he had expected touch his feet. He wondered what this thing was for about half a second before the snapping sensation that came from it told him that it was a person.

Whoever was under him crumpled beneath him, and served as an excellent cushion to break his fall, in spite of the bones and various other hard parts that Nathan felt bend in unnatural and probably unhealthy ways. A cloud of dust, wood splinters, and snow blocked most of his immediate vision. He could hear weapons being drawn though, and that was more than enough motivation to kick his body into gear.

He struggled back to his feet and took a quick step in a random direction, freeing his vision from the obstructers and revealing a small room to him. All around him were surprised and startled faces, and one individual in particular looked far more decorated than the others, with badges and a sword that looked much more expensive than the rest. Without hesitating, Nathan pulled out his sword and lunged at the man, intending to kill him. He drew his sword, but he was too late to get his defense up. Nathan's blade easily wove its way through and planted itself in his throat. The man's eyes widened, the sword dropped out of his hand, and he started to gurgle pathetically, clawing at the blade with weak fingers.

Nathan pulled the blade out and turned to face the others. Every single person was now facing him with weapons drawn, and Nathan knew that he had to escape. His eyes flicked around the room quickly, and he quickly identified his best root for escape. The men were blocking off his path to the door, but a window to his side was easily accessible.

The men with guns leveled on him saw what he was planning, and fired their weapons. Nathan knew that there was no better option, and brought an arm up to protect his head as he broke out towards the window. Loud shots rang out and split his ears while at the same time balls of lead hammered into his body. He could feel several of them punch against his padded armor and fall off ineffectually, but most didn't. Most ripped through his clothing and tore into his flesh, not even the supernatural forces that usually protected him able to stop them.

In spite of all the pain, Nathan pushed forwards. He dove through the window sending shards of glass everywhere before landing with a roll. Several more spikes of pain shot through his back as the last of the enemy's' shots broke through his armor, but he kept moving, taking his ability to do so as a signal that he was not damaged too heavily.

One of the guards nearer the building was within arm's reach, and Nathan didn't hesitate to grab at him, wresting the rifle out of his hands and kicking him away. The barrels of gunpowder and shot were within eyesight from where he was but too far to set off. He could've just shot it, but if he wanted to set the powder off he would have to either have to hit the metal brace of a barrel to create a spark, or be closer so the sparks from the end of his own gun would set it off.

He didn't have enough faith in his own aim to pull off that shot even without being full of bullets. He started to run towards the barrels, ignoring the building pain in his legs and continuing to charge forward. A few more shots slammed into his back and legs, but they couldn't stop him from running. In seconds, he was at point blank range. He could hear the guns all around him being loaded again, and hurried his actions. He brought the butt of the gun down of the barrel, splintering the wall and spilling powder out over the other barrels and onto the ground. Nathan took a deep breath as he aimed the rifle at the powder and readied himself mentally. He wasn't looking forward to it, but he would have to blink.

His finger twitched, and the gun kicked back against his shoulder as the lead pellet was thrown out of its end. Sparks were quick to follow, and Nathan focused again on his blink as fast as his mind would allow. He didn't have enough energy to even direct the direction that he went in, but the pain made him not care.

It felt like something was trying to pull his brain out. His vision blurred and his hearing dulled. Somewhere behind him a large roaring sound ripped through the air, but he didn't care. The ground rushed up to meet his face, and he fell unconscious, hoping that he had done enough to disperse the attackers.


	13. Chapter 13

Nathan woke up, not sure that he was really awake. He was colder than he had ever been, but couldn't even really feel it. He tried to push himself up, but found the ground beneath him seemed more than willing to spin as fast as it could in an attempt to throw him back down. It worked, and Nathan thudded against the snow again, his wounds in his side and in his arm flaring up again painfully. Snow was pushed into his wounds and started melting, causing a great deal of pain. He let out a prolonged grunt as the muscles in his arm and side started to spasm against his will.

With another enormous effort, Nathan struggled to his feet without using his right arm. His stance was stooped and unsteady, threatening to topple over. He took a few staggering steps in a random direction and coming up against a tree. He leaned against it, thanking whatever force that had placed this tree here was certainly a benign one, be it the Outsider, random chance, or maybe ever some other divine intervention. He looked up and tried to focus on the world around him, using what limited senses he had.

His vision swam, and sound rolled painfully around in his head. Every brush of his body against the tree, the ground, everything, hurt in some way. The area around him was snowy and cold, a line of trees surrounding a blasted clearing, and at the center of it all was the blackened and burning skeletal remains of the shack that had somehow survived the explosion that had sundered everything around it. There were a few bodies lying strewn around the spot of blackened earth where the barrels had been before they had exploded, several still smoking. It didn't appear that there were any men nearby, friends or enemies. He wasn't sure if this was a good sign or not. If anything, Nathan supposed that it meant that he had done his job well enough. The distant sounds of battle continued, though, and he wasn't sure if the echoes of the battle he had sought to end were current, or memories his mind clung to trying to ensure he remembered.

His attention wavered as a huge ringing sound filled his ears. It was a sound he knew already. He mumbled to himself quietly "Not again…" as he put a hand to his head and tried to block out the ringing. It didn't work, and the sound just kept growing louder. It did this until it reached its high point, and Nathan thought his skull was going to split in two. Then, as he fell to his knees again, it started to subside.

Nathan reached out to the tree again, using a small stump of a branch to pull himself back up onto his feet. The wood bent under his weight, but thankfully did not break. He peered around, blinking rapidly to try and clear his vision. It didn't work very well, but it did give enough clarity to see most of the rest of the clearing. The trail he had followed to get to the clearing was unoccupied, and he thought he saw a few sets of footprints leading away. He started to make his way towards the road. Keeping to the woods wouldn't grant him much benefit in his current state. Every time his boots hit the ground another pound of pressure seemed to fill his skull.

It could have been his imagination, but as he walked the sounds of battle seemed to grow closer. It was a very gradual change, but so was his walk. After what seemed like hours Nathan came to the place that had formerly been the artillery battlement. The corpses of those he had slain were still draped across their weapons, but now seemed to have bled themselves dry. Their syrupy blood covered the snow near them and now formed a slick film over the guns.

Nathan walked past them. As he came to the top of the hill that the guns sat on in view of the fort, he saw that it was, at very least, still standing. Battered, perhaps even dangerously so, but still standing. Not too unalike himself. The crack of musket fire was still going on though, and Nathan could see white smoke for almost each shot he heard, and he concluded that they were still fighting. His shoulders slumped slightly. He felt utterly exhausted, and the battle wasn't even over.

He looked down the hill to check if he could see any of the enemy soldiers. A few could be seen ducking through the trees and briefly taking aim at the fort before firing and moving on. Nathan knew that if they were running around like that, than their attack had already essentially failed. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind as best he could of the forced fog that hazed over him, trying to gauge how much energy he had left. The head injury made it difficult, but he had without a doubt regained at least some portion of his power. It might have been enough to make a significant difference in the remainder of the battle, but even with the backing of magic, he doubted that in his condition he would be of much use to anyone.

He looked down, this time at his bullet riddled body. There were more holes in his armor than he cared to count, and a few that looked like they had been bleeding fairly heavily, but had closed over the period of time he was knocked out. He could be thankful for that, at least. He wondered if he would have to get them removed. Lead was dangerous, but he was strong. He had resisted infections before. Maybe lead poisoning wouldn't be too different. Even with this somewhat optimistic thought, it wasn't a chance that he was terribly keen on taking.

He noticed a quite a few indents in addition to the holes. He brought his left hand up and, with a grimace, tried to brush the marks away. Musket balls were dislodged and fell clinking to the ground. Nathan couldn't help but smile at this. There was something very ridiculous to him about so many shots being halted by his armor, and still sustaining the level of damage he had. If he hadn't been wearing any armor, or even the armor that the guards or soldiers had, he would likely look quite a bit more like some kind of abstract statue.

He kicked the musket balls weakly out of the way before continuing to walk. His knees and below started to feel numb, but he dismissed this. The less he could feel, the happier he was, at least for right now. As soon as he was back somewhere safe, he would take all the pain he had to in order to make a full recovery.

A twig somewhere to his right snapped, and was followed by a crashing sound. He looked over to find a person who looked about in their teenage years. It looked like they had been fleeing from the battle, but had fallen over in the attempt. They fixed Nathan with a terrified gaze and started scrabbling through the snow in a desperate attempt to get away. Nathan considered gong after him. If he did, he might get a valuable guide back to the fort, and from there back to Arendelle. But on the other hand; he was tired, and energy would be vital if he were to survive his injuries.

The boy started to put some real distance between himself and Nathan, and he knew he would have to decide immediately. With a tired sigh, Nathan blinked, covering the distance between the two in an instant. He reached a hand out with a small yelp of pain as a ball of lead shifted somewhere uncomfortably in his flesh, and grabbed a hold of the back of the boy's collar.

He fully expected to be pulled off of his feet by the speed that the boy was moving, so when he found himself as sturdy as a rock instead of tumbling over with the boy, he was pleasantly surprised. The boy fell back, landing in a sitting position and, judging by the look on his face, injuring his tailbone in the process. Nathan didn't give him any chance to recuperate and possibly fight back. He pulled him up from the ground, hiding the pain this caused behind a stony expressionless mask, and turning him so that they were face to face.

The boy was in his late teens, with acne on his face and short greasy blond hair. He wasn't much shorted than Nathan, but was much less muscular. He didn't seem to be the type who would enter into the army. He fixed Nathan with a terrified gaze, blubbering half constructed sentences that might have been pleas for mercy. Nathan put a hand over the boy's mouth and said in a strained voice "Shut up kid."

The boy seemed to calm down, at least slightly. He stopped pulling against Nathan's grasp and went limp, looking Nathan from head to toe. When he reached his head again he gave him a worried look and asked "What happened to you?"

Nathan raised an eyebrow and looked himself up and down before stating in a flat tone "I got shot." The boy gave him an incredulous look but didn't say anything more. Nathan gave him a pained grimace and said "Now, what's going to happen now is that you are going to take me through the lines where they are weakest, and I'm going to go back to that fort." The boy stated to protest, but Nathan wasn't feeling incredibly patient at the moment. He interrupted him, saying "Unless you want to get stabbed, I suggest you do what I say."

This proved to be a much more potent motivator for the youth, and he nodded earnestly. "Alright, alright, I'll do it, just please don't kill me!" Nathan gave him a small smile and nod, saying "That's all it will take." The boy swallowed and his face fell, as if he just realized what he had agreed to. He probably had. He seemed the type to do anything to survive. Including retreat from a battle.

Nathan let go of his shirt and gestured back towards the front lines, saying "Lead the way" in a sardonic tone. The boy started walking. Nathan knew that he might lead him into a trap, but he was more than prepared to kill the kid at the first sign of treachery. Part of him hoped he wouldn't, though. He didn't seem like the kind of hostile person who Nathan kind of expected to be in the enemy's army.

Nathan followed him with his slow, limping walk. The feeling started to return throughout his body, and he started shivering. The boy looked back occasionally to make sure that Nathan was still following. Each time he did Nathan met his eyes with a hard gaze and put a hand on the hilt of his sword. This was enough to get him to keep moving, all color draining from his shocked and worried face.

This continued for roughly ten minutes before the pair came to a stop, ducking behind a bush within earshot of a line of soldiers shouting orders to each other, preparing to launch another attack on the fort. If Nathan had to guess, the man organizing the assault knew that his efforts were doomed. He didn't seem to be committing fully to the attack. It seemed more like he was dispatching a small force to cover a retreat. The boy Nathan coopted as a guide looked over nervously at him and said "We can wait here until they pass. They are going to withdraw, so if we just stay in hiding, they will pass right by us."

Nathan shook his head and said "That's not good enough. You can go and hide if you want, but only after I get back to the fort. What you're going to do is take me around them to the nearest spot where I could get through. After that I couldn't care less what you do." The boy gulped and his eyes darted around a few more times before he took a deep breath and nodded. "If I get you out of here, you'll let me go?" he asked, a glint of suspicion in his eyes. Nathan nodded. The boy didn't seem convinced however, and said "How do I know you'll keep your word?"

Nathan gave the boy a smile. It had taken him long enough to question Nathan's limited geniality. He spread his arms in a questioning gesture and said "I haven't killed you yet, have I? Let that be enough of a promise. There wouldn't be much point to keeping you this long if I intended to kill you at all. You can make my return easier, and I would be very grateful for it."

The boy sighed again before motioning for Nathan to follow him as he peaked out from behind the bush and made sure that the coast was clear. After he affirmed this, he dashed out and ducked behind another bush. Nathan followed as quickly and as stealthily as he could. The pain that had returned to his extremities was starting to work its way back towards his chest, making it significantly harder to stay quiet. He reached the bush without incident however, and as soon as he did so a large number of troops ran past the bush, trampling it under their feet. If he had still been there he would've surely been caught.

A small number of the troops stayed behind, checking their weapons, speaking in hushed whispers, and a few even offering up a few prayers. Nathan felt a twinge of something deep in his chest. Not the pain that racked most of him, though he was sure that would reach his chest eventually. It something else. Some emotion. It wasn't quite sorrow or sadness, but it was something similar. The men were preparing to attack the fort one last time, and Nathan presumed that it was in hopes of preventing a counterattack and chase by those in the fort. Nathan knew that that counterattack was not coming though. The battle had been won, and no soldier of Arendelle would pursue an enemy who had already been defeated and was no longer attacking. This attack that was being prepared was a suicide mission, and a totally unnecessary one at that.

He found himself wondering if he should call out, or stop them in some way. He could save many lives, but for what? If he warned them and let them go, they would only rejoin in another attack later. They were obviously not keen on surrender, and he doubted that they would believe him if he told them that the attack was unnecessary.

There was no way he was going to try and cross a battlefield, even if it was so much smaller than the previous ones. Instead, he opted to wait for them to throw themselves at the battlements of the fort. The feeling in his chest grew, but he ignored it. The men would die of their own accord, he would have no part in it. The boy next to him seemed to realize what was going to happen, but was powerless to do anything about it. It was all he could to do to sit and watch those he had served with prepare to die.

A cry of "Charge!" went up among them, and they leapt out of their places and started running at the fort, leveling their rifles and firing as they ran. They stopped to reload after each firing, but another line of men ran past and also fired, allowing time to reload. In spite of this tactic, they were no match for the volley of lead that came raining down from the walls of the fort.

The first round of defensive firing from the fort felled nearly all of the soldiers, and the second left none still standing. There was a tense moment of silence as the men on the walls waited for any other indication of hostility. None came, and after a short time someone inside the fort shouted "They've ran! We did it!"

A loud cheer rose up from the fort. A feeling of warmth seemed to emanate from the top of the hill. Even the boy seemed happy, though his was likely centered more on him being still alive. Nathan took a few unsteady steps forward before turning back to the boy and waving a hand. "Go on, get out of here." He said in a dismissive tone. The boy gave him a confused look, and said "That's it? Really?"

Nathan nodded. "Unless you want to go and apologize. Now, get out of here. Go and do something productive with your life" he gestured to the corpses strewn around the field and along the hill "unlike those." The boy nodded profusely and wasted no time in turning around and sprinting away. Nathan watched him go for a few seconds before turning and walking away himself. He wondered not if he had done the right thing in letting him go, but what would happen to him. He could've gone off to start a new life, doing something more useful than being thrown at heavily fortified positions through hails of lead. However, it was also possible that he intended to rejoin with the military at the soonest opportunity, and would readily attack Arendelle again. If Nathan saw him again in battle, he would be sure to single him out.

Another wave of pain crashed into him like a charging horse. He stopped walking and immediately went down on one knee, trying to avoid doing any more major damage to himself by falling. He wasn't sure how effective this method was, as a tearing sensation in one of the ligaments in his legs made him gasp. He closed his eyes and waited for the pain to pass.

After what felt like an hour, the pain receded, and he pushed himself back up. His vision again swam in front of his eyes, but he started walking again. Once he was clear of the tree line, he heard a shout go up among those still on the wall, and he saw numerous guns leveled on him. He put his hands over his head, one arm willing to go further than the other, making him look lopsided. A few more shouts came at him, and they sounded like questions, but Nathan's head started to ring again.

A gate at the front of the fort opened, and people started coming out. Nathan couldn't tell how many, but was sure that there were more than one. They got closer to him, but their speech did not become any clearer. Nathan tried to walk past them, knowing that the fort was the safest place to be. They stopped him, putting their hands up in front of him and not moving. Nathan was about to walk to the side when the ringing in his head returned, forcing him to the ground. Before he could hit the ground, he was caught by one of the people.

He felt himself start to drift away, and resigned himself to unconsciousness. After what he had done, there was no shame in it. Most people would've died under the circumstances he had been in. But he had managed to find his way back. He was safe.

Nathan's body slumped over in the soldiers arms. He caught him and gave the Captain a worried look. No one said anything for a while, all simply looking at him and wondering how he could have made it back in the condition he was in. The first to speak was a Private from the back of the group, who said "He looks like a piece of Swiss cheese!"

One of the men next to him gave him a hardy slap on the back of the head. The Captain made a mental note to reward the man for taking it upon himself for doing that. He called for a medic, and one soon arrived, already covered in gore and dressed for surgery from treating the other injured inside the fort. He looked at Nathan with wide eyes, having trouble believing what he was seeing. With the amount of injury he had sustained, it was clear that he should have been dead.

He would have said to leave him out in the open while he treated his wounds, but given the fact that he had just been walking at all, he guessed that he would be fine being moved. He gave the order, and a stretcher was brought out. Nathan was placed on it and carried inside, and the medic followed, preparing himself mentally for a very extensive operation.

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Author's thing:

After many jokes about ending this story at the end of last chapter with my friends, The new chapter is up.

Remember to leave a review!

Eat it Tyler, you know who you are.


	14. Chapter 14

Elsa paced nervously around the room. A small voice somewhere in the further reaches of her mind told her that it was doing no good, but she ignored it. Pacing made her feel slightly calmer, and if she couldn't do that than there was nothing she could do to set her nerves at ease. She might just sit down and go insane with the tension.

There was still no word from the front, and she didn't know if her reinforcements had made it in time. Or whether Nathan was alright or not. She didn't know which was worse. She couldn't imagine what she would do if both were true. It was all that she could do now to hope that neither was true.

A sudden knock at the door made her jump, and Anna's voice came through the heavy wood of the door, saying "Hey Elsa, are you alright in there? I know you're worried, we all are, but you need to come out!" She let out a sigh. Why did her sister have to be so damn caring? She called out, saying "Ok, I'm coming!"

She walked over to the door and pulled it open, revealing the concerned face of her dear sister. She gave Anna an insincere smile, trying her best to fool her. It didn't work, and Anna only looked more worried. "Do you… want to talk?" Anna asked, her expression becoming just a little hopeful. She sighed and let her shoulders slump, knowing that arguing against her sister would have no real yield. "Sure. Let's go." She said, tired. Anna disappeared from the doorway of Elsa's room and started to walk down the hall. She followed her sister slowly, horrible thoughts of possible disasters that might have struck somewhere weighing her feet down.

Anna looked behind her and saw her sister lagging behind. She slowed her walk down so that she fell in beside her and gave her a careful look. She looked like she had been awake for days. She hadn't, of course, which made it more worrying in a way. Elsa glanced up to her sister with bags under her eyes before looking back down at the floor and continuing to walk silently. Anna knew that her sister needed help right now, and she might've asked Nathan to help, if he hadn't been part of the problem. In the absence of Nathan, Anna supposed that it was up to her alone to comfort her sister.

She ran through a small list of people who might be able to help her. Kristoff was gone, harvesting ice. Because of that Sven was out of the question as well. Olaf was gone, having vanished off the face of the earth as he seemed to do with increasing frequency. Eugene and Rapunzel might have been able to pull her out of the rut she was in, but it would take days to even contact them. She really was on her own.

"So…" her voice trailed off before she had even really started. She shook her head and steeled herself for another attempt. "So what's got you down?" as soon as the words had left her mouth she felt like slapping herself. Was that really the best she could come up with? She may as well start babbling about the weather.

Elsa seemed to feel similarly about her attempt, rolling her eyes and saying "I wonder…" Anna wasn't sure how to continue after such a huge misstep as her first move. If there was anything that might've saved her from the unbearable silence between the two after that, she would've done it in an instant. She looked out a window as they passed, and something occurred to her. Maybe talking about the weather wasn't such a bad idea after all.

She perked up and asked her sister "Do you think you could teach me how to change the weather?" Elsa looked at Anna with a questioning look before shrugging her shoulders and saying "maybe" in that same tired, almost monotone voice. Anna faltered for a moment, not sure how to respond, before saying "Well, do you think we could try?" in a voice that sounded more hopeful than she felt.

Elsa took a few moments to devise a response, and when she did, it was her looking to Anna, her eyes half closed, and saying "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I think I just need to be alone right now."

With those words, her sister turned to walk away. Anna watched her go, dress trailing behind her as she walked. Anna felt something boil up inside of her. Something that she wasn't accustomed to. It started as annoyance. Why did Elsa have to do this? Why did she always think that being alone was the answer to everything? The feeling quickly blossomed into something else, something that made her cheeks burn and her fists clench. Then, without any forethought, all that emotion burst out in a barrage of words directed at her sister.

"Alright, fine! Go to your room and play with your powers! I'm sorry that I tried to help." The feeling subsided slightly, but quickly started to grow again. Elsa turned around to face Anna, a shocked expression on her face. Anna would've apologized for her outburst, but somehow Elsa's expression made it boil over again. "What? Why do you look so startled? Did you not think that eventually someone would get mad about how you… you… do this? How every time you go into a situation that clearly needs other people to help you just disengage? Because that seems really childish to me."

A heavy silence settled between the two of them. For what felt like hours, Elsa just stood there, staring at her with a stunned expression on her face. Then, as the feeling of hours started to turn to days, something started to change in Elsa's demeanor. Her shoulders started to shake, her chest started to heave, and tears started to flow from her eyes. A heavy dread came over Anna as she realized what she had said, and she started to hold her arms out for her sister. Before she had even risen them all the way, Elsa dashed forward and embraced her sister in a rib-shattering hug, burying her face in her shoulders and starting to sob.

Broken, spastic speech came from her sister. Words so saturated in sadness that she started to feel herself get sad just from hearing them. "I'm s-s-sorry, Anna. It's just t-t-that I c-can't do this o-on my own. I-I just feel like its m-my r-responsibility to handle it on my own."

She returned her sisters hug and felt the entire feeling that had overcome her fade away. She felt horrible about what she had said. "Elsa, I… I'm sorry, I just…" there was nothing she could say. Nothing that express just how she felt. She let the sentence hand in the air and die. Her sister hugged her harder, and she returned the gesture. She wondered how Nathan would handle this situation. Somehow she figured that there wouldn't be quite so many tears.

Anna looked down at the floor, just becoming aware of a thin film of ice starting to form over the floor. She wondered if it was from her sister or herself. There was no really way to tell, after all. She tried briefly to get rid of it, but she couldn't focus herself enough to do it.

The pair made their way slowly back to the library. The place that seemed to represent a constant in the girls' lives. A place they always ended up coming back to. They moved to a large chair and sat down next to each other, still clutching onto each other like their lives depended on it. They just sat there and cried a while, no words having any reason or meaning.

After another immeasurable span of time, there was a knock at the door. Both girls looked towards the door, surprised. Another knock at the door seemed to snap them out of whatever trance they had been in. Both stood, wiped their faces off, and straightened themselves. Elsa called out to the door, but faltered as her voice was still very unsteady. She coughed, cleared her throat, and tried again. "Come in."

The door opened, and a nervous looking guard hailed them from the other side. "Hello, your majesty! I… you may want…" he looked behind him, unsure as to how to continue, before looking back to Elsa with eyes that seemed to be asking for help. "The…uh… Royal Protector has returned."

The effect of Elsa was immediate and obvious. She straightened up and smiled, saying "Really? Where is he?" The guard gulped, and Anna could tell that there was something up with him. The guard looked behind him again, and gestured for something. Then, with a few audible groans of pain, Nathan stepped forward, a wry smile on his face.

Both Elsa and Anna gasped when they saw him. He looked battered, bruised, bloodied, and almost broken. His normally orderly clothes were singed and burned severely, there were numerous bullet holes in his chest piece, a white bandage was slung around his arm and over his shoulder, keeping his right arm still, and he walked with a now very obvious limp. In spite of all that, though, he still smiled at Elsa, making a waving motion with his bandaged arm than wincing in pain as he seemed to realize that doing so was a poor idea.

Elsa ran towards him, outstretching her arms and giving him a worried look, saying "Are you alright?" in a more worried tone than Anna had heard her use in a long time. Before she could reach him and wrap her arms around him, Nathan stepped back and put his good arm up, saying "Maybe the hugs should stay at a minimum for a while, Elsa. I know It breaks your heart, but…" he gestured to his various injuries "…a little more than my heart here."

Elsa looked dejected, but still immensely happy that he had returned. Anna was happy as well, but more because his arrival took some of the pressure off of her. She was glad that he was alright, of course, but who said she couldn't be a little selfish every once in a while?

She shuffled uncomfortably, feeling a bit out of place in the reunion. If Elsa and Nathan wanted to be alone, she would be happy to oblige. All they had to do was ask. They didn't though, and she was left to stand awkwardly waiting for something to happen. Elsa walked slowly and cautiously forward, than embraced Nathan in a gentle hug, careful not to upset his wounds. The look on his face told that he appreciated the effort, even though it didn't entirely work. He flinched, but tried not to let the pain show.

Anna Gave Nathan a concerned look, but he didn't notice. He was too busy returning Elsa's hug. His movements were ginger and gentle, trying not to upset his wounds or cause himself any undue pain. Elsa came off of him and looked him over again. "Are you sure that you are alright?" she asked in a concerned voice.

Anna couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at this. It was very obvious that Nathan was not alright. Why did she ask that? In any case, Nathan gave a small, pained looking laugh and said "I'm sure I've been worse at some point. Anyways, how are you? Has your day been as exciting as mine?"

Elsa didn't smile at the joke. She motioned for Nathan to come into the library and motioned for the guard to go. The man seemed happy to oblige, and Nathan behaved likewise. He took a few struggling steps before reaching out an arm and making a noise that seemed to suggest that he needed help. Elsa rushed back to him and let him put an arm over her shoulder, letting some of his weight onto her. She staggered under the sudden weight, and motioned for Anna to come and help her.

She rushed over to help, getting herself under Nathan's other shoulder. He smelled like blood. Blood and smoke. She didn't like the combination. She and Elsa worked together to get Nathan over to where they had been sitting before, and as they did so Anna felt herself get increasingly worried for Nathan. He seemed as fine as one could be under his condition; able to walk, move, and talk under relatively his own power, but there were small quakes inside of him that Anna could just barely feel. Muscles were twitching under the pressure to continue what they were doing. She could feel small muscles in his arm struggling to continue keeping himself up on her shoulders.

They got him to the seat and laid him down, a few of his joints popping as he shifted his weight off of his legs. He let out a groan, and a small smile came across his face. "Feels good to sit down" he said to nobody in particular. Anna looked across him to Elsa with a questioning look. She would've asked her what she thought happened to him, but all that she could divine through her mental link was worry. Her concern was far too major. She wanted to help her sister calm down, but there wasn't anything that she could do to ease her discomfort other than stay by her in case she needed something.

Nathan took a deep breath, and started recounting the story of had had happened to him. Anna and Elsa listened, intrigued to hear what happenings could have possibly led to him getting as beaten as he had. By the end of the story, Anna was sure that he had exaggerated at least some part of it. His voice hadn't wavered in any way that people did when they lied. It all coincided with what injuries it looked like he had gotten, and he didn't seem the type to exaggerate anyways.

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Author's Note:

I apologize for the short chapter, but various things made a longer one not viable. The next one is going to be longer.

As always, leave feedback, share with your friends, whatever. I appreciate it.


	15. Chapter 15

Nathan peered between Elsa and her sister with a slightly confused look on his face. Both were red eyed and faced like they had been crying recently. He didn't know what they might've been crying about, but he felt like it had something to do with the starting of what had to be called a war. He supposed that he had expected something like that to happen eventually. She probably wasn't taking the "war" thing too well, feeling depressed that she had let war really break out between her own people and the Southern Isles.

He tried to get up from his seat, but Elsa put a hand on the center of his chest, keeping him down. "No, you need to rest. What do you want? I'll get it." Nathan shook his head and tried to get up again, only to be denied again. "Nathan, if you keep doing this I'll have you bound." Nathan smirked and said "Than I'll just have to escape." in a joking tone. Elsa gave him a hard look, and he put his arms up exasperatedly "All I want to do it stretch my legs a little. Is that too much to ask?"

Elsa fixed him with a steely gaze before begrudgingly sighing and saying "Alright, fine. But have to promise me that you'll be careful." He nodded, deciding not to bring up the fact that he had made a similar promise before heading out the first time. Elsa took a step back, allowing him room to stand. He pushed against the cushions slowly, testing the muscles before putting any real strain on them. They seemed fine, so he made to slide off the seat and push himself up at the same time. This didn't seem to agree with him, and he felt a jolt of pain go through his arms, as well as his feet as they hit the solid wooden floor. He found himself unprepared for the sudden increase of sensation and gasped.

Before he even had so much time as to readjust his posture and try again, Elsa was trying to push him back down saying "See? You aren't as well as you think you are! Please, just lay back down." Now Nathan was determined. It wasn't just that he wanted to stretch his legs, it was about pride. He knew exactly how injured he was. He knew exactly what he was capable of in such a state. Walking on his own wouldn't be easy, but it was well within his power.

He pushed Elsa off lightly and jerked himself up, now prepared for the pain that would come. And come it did. For a few brief seconds the tendons in his legs felt like they were on fire, but he held his face as a cold, expressionless mask until he was all the way up and the pain started to fade. Anna was still sitting to his side, but as he rose up she stood quickly and moved just a little closer to catch him if he fell. He gave her a small disapproving look out of the corner of his eye before returning his gaze to Elsa and taking a few steps.

His feet hurt. Most of his entire body hurt, of course, but his feet hurt especially badly. He gave the matter a brief moment of thought as to why that was, and was quickly reminded of his drop from a tree, through the roof of a building, the many pounding steps he had taken, the leaps over the walls of the fort…

He felt somewhat foolish for even having to give the matter any thought. He took a few steps, resisting the urge to wince as he felt the pain of his legs again. In spite of the pain, he brought his arms above his head, stretching. He felt incredibly stiff.

His arms made several loud popping noises as he pulled them first to one side, than to the other. With each nose, Anna and Elsa winced. He didn't bother lying to himself by telling himself that he didn't enjoy the sight just a little bit. He turned his torso to one side, twisting his spine, and another loud series of noises were emitted by the bones as they were put under pressure by his muscles.

Feeling much more limber than he had seconds ago, Nathan walked back over to the seat that had so far been allocated to him and sat, giving Elsa a facetious look while saying "See? I didn't even injure myself again." Elsa gave him an annoyed look, than glanced over at her sister. Anna was trying (and failing) to hide a fit of laughter behind her hand. Elsa shook her head and said "Don't encourage him." in a sullen tone. The humor didn't entirely escape her however, and she turned away from the pair to hide her smile.

Anna sat back down in the chair that she had been sitting in, and Nathan asked her "So, what fun adventures have been happening here while I was gone? Anything as exciting as the ones I've had?" Anna looked over to her sister, like she was not sure what to say. This was an immediate indicator that something may indeed have happened while he was gone that he should be aware of. He sat forward in his seat and said "Wait, nothing bad happened, right?"

Elsa turned, a slightly forced looking smile on her face. She said "No. Nothing else has gone wrong so far." She looked to her sister, and Nathan noted that she was rubbing her hands together nervously. He sat farther forward and said "You should know by now that you're going to have to do an awful lot better than that if you want me to believe your lies." Anna gave him a light slap on the arm, saying "rude" in a playful tone before immediately realizing that she had hit almost directly on top of a bandage and apologized profusely. Nathan waved her off. It hadn't hurt that much anyways.

Elsa gave him a pleading look, like she was asking him to drop it, before looking again to Anna. Anna gave her sister a sympathetic look and said "Maybe we should just tell him. There is no reason not to." Nathan looked between the two for a second before again noticing the red faces and tear marks and taking a shot in the dark. "You two had a fight?"

The girls looked at him with half shocked, half puzzled expressions. A smile came across Nathan's face and he asked "Am I right?" Anna gave him a wordless nod, and he felt a little bud of pride in his chest. He hadn't really had any specific indicator as to what the issue had been, but had guessed right anyways. It was a matter of pure luck, but still made him feel good. "What about?" he asked, clearing the coincidental pride from his mind.

Anna cleared her throat and started to talk, but was interrupted by Elsa, who said "I started to have… issues… dealing with things that have been happening, and Anna helped me work through them in a very… sisterly way." Nathan repeated the words "sisterly way" out loud before snorting to himself and saying "I'm not quite sure what that means, I'm an only child." Anna was about to respond when a thoughtful look came across Nathan's face and he said "At least, I think I am." He shrugged and said "I suppose it hardly matters. Anyways, sorry, please continue."

Anna faltered, not very sure how to continue smoothly after such a musing. She did continue, though, and said "It's… uh… loud. Loud, and generally requires apologies later." Nathan raised an eyebrow, unsure if she was purposely making an innuendo, or if it was one too many overheard drunken bar conversations playing tricks on his mind. She didn't react, so he assumed that it was the latter.

He nodded. "I suppose it has to happen at some point or another. Better it solves a problem than just making conflict I guess. It seems strange to me though, fighting with a sibling. I've never had one, so I guess I wouldn't know, but shouldn't you be… I don't know, closer to them than anybody else?" Anna and Elsa looked at each other with slightly surprised looks on their faces. Elsa said "Well… we are, but… it's hard to explain." She looked over to her sister again and said "Anna, do you think you could…?"

Anna shrugged her shoulders and said "Maybe. I guess it's just because we know each other so well that there's more friction between us when we rub shoulders the wrong way." She looked to her sister with a slightly questioning look on her face "Is that good?" Elsa nodded. Nathan made a small snorting noise and smirked, saying "Maybe its better I don't have a sibling. That sounds like it would get irritating at times."

Elsa gave him a sad look, like she was pitying him for not knowing what he was missing. He didn't quite care though, as he honestly believed that having a sibling would've only annoyed him. It might've been somewhat difficult for them to understand, but the appeal of having another person tethered to his hip was lost on him as well. One of the wounds in his lower back started to tingle as the impending flare of pain started to build. He shifted so that it wasn't touching anything and slid an arm back to put pressure on the wound.

Elsa made to comfort him somehow, reaching towards him, but he held up his other hand. "I'm fine, just a little sore." She looked around the room hesitantly, like she was trying not to say something, before looking at his and offering "If you want something for the pain, I'm sure that I could get something for you."

Nathan felt just a little twinge of annoyance at the offer. It was sincere concern, and he appreciated it, but there seemed to be some kind of underlying implication that he couldn't handle the pain. It was childish and unfounded, but still grinded against his brain uncomfortably. He shook his head and said "No, I'm fine." Elsa looked disappointed, but Anna looked over him and raised an eyebrow. This made Nathan smirk, and he said to Anna "Maybe not the usual definition of fine, but considering the condition I'm in right now I think that I feel pretty good in comparison to how I could be feeling."

A silence came over the room, and Nathan felt his eyelids start to get heavy. He supposed that falling asleep under the current circumstances wouldn't be too bad. It was quiet, he was in a comfortable room and a semi-comfortable position. The pain from his wounds was certainly there, but not enough to keep him awake. His company wouldn't be offended if he went to sleep, and he was undoubtedly feeling like he could fall asleep. He let his eyed drift shut, and allowed the comforting darkness to embrace him.

Sleep felt good. He always seemed to forget just how good it felt. It was the only time when he really allowed himself to fully relax. The black mist of slumber settled around his mind, and he half expected the Outsider to come through the mist and start talking to him. No such thing happened though, and he found himself somewhere else entirely.

He was back in the cold trees of the area, crouching in the snow. The pounding of cannons was incredibly loud in his ears, and made his vision swim each time one of the weapons fired their concussive shot.

He didn't know why he was back here, but if he was, he was going to do what he had done the first time. Smoke from the cannons swirled around the men firing them and almost entirely masked them from sight. Their silhouettes were still able to be seen though, and Nathan made those his targets. He took a few small and cautious steps out of his spot in the snow before blinking out towards them and bringing his blade up to strike against the closest one. His sword rushed through the air before connecting solidly with the misty figure.

As soon as the tip of the sword touched his target, the smoke rushed away from them and Nathan was confused at what he saw. The figure looked like a man, one of the soldiers that Nathan remembered killing, but seemed to blink in and out of existence, being replaced every time by someone he knew. The other people all passed too quickly to make out distinctively, but he was able to catch small details that he thought he was able to recognize. Bright blue eyes that unmistakably belonged to Elsa, red hair that belonged to Anna, and traits from people from further back in his past. One was the broken crooked smile of a bully Nathan had learned to hate, one was the kindly yet plotting face of someone who had hired him quite often in comparison to his other past clients.

Instead of his blade penetrating his target, the person jerked to the side and sent his blade off target. Before he could react, the shifting figure batted his arm aside and threw it's an arm out towards him. He didn't anticipate the strike to do much damage, but when it impacted his chest he felt like what he imagined getting hit by a cannonball felt like. He was thrown backwards off of his feet, and skidded through the snow on his back. Snow piled on top of him as it was pushed by his back.

Nathan struggled to get back up, pushing against the ground and trying to get back to his feet. The figure that knocked him down moved almost too quickly to be seen, sprinting over to his side and placing a heavy foot on the center of his chest. He pushed against it for several seconds before realizing that it would do him no good.

Than a strange thing happened. The overall structure of the figure changed. It no longer was dominantly one of the cannoneer, but a more slender, feminine figure. The weight on Nathan's chest lightened, and he immediately redoubled his efforts to get away. He kicked up off the ground, grabbing the ankle of the new figure and twisting it as he did so. The thing fell, and he quickly got back up, bringing his blade into a position where another lethal strike would've been easy. Something made him stay his hand though, and that was that he recognized the figure.

The semi-constant features of the figure were those of Elsa. Numerous other features flickered across her countenance, but she was still identifiably Elsa. Her face, when it was hers, looked worried, like she was concerned that he was going to hurt her. This put Nathan in a very strange position. He knew that he was in a dream, something this bizarre had no place in reality, but he didn't know if his actions had any consequences. He didn't sleepwalk, but the possibility that he had just started was a little too disconcerting to allow him to harm someone he knew in a dream, even if most of them wasn't themselves.

Elsa got back to her feet, kicking her legs up and flinging her body up with an agility and discipline that she didn't really have. Nathan made to move towards her, but she reacted quickly, throwing an arm out towards him like the other figure had. He was ready for it this time, and took a fast step back. The fake Elsa looked taken aback that he would avoid her, and tried again to strike him. He didn't feel good about attacking Elsa, but he had to defend himself.

As her hand came towards him, Nathan took a hold of her wrist and pulled her arm away from him. She was set off-balance, and Nathan brought a foot up to kick her away. His foot connected, and a chorus of voices, all vaguely familiar, cried out in pain as the figure stumbled back. It was unsettling to say the least. Before it finished stumbling it shifted again, now being a more masculine figure. Nathan couldn't make out the specific details of this one as it seemed that it didn't have any.

The other figures in the smoke started to move towards Nathan. As they got closer, the smoke started to disperse around them and Nathan realized that he was surrounded by these strange flickering shapes. The figures all looked different, different general body structures and shuffling features, but they all had something similar about them. Nathan couldn't put a finger on it, but they all looked familiar. Some were feminine, some were masculine, but all had the same strangely familiar features.

One by one, the strange figures started to make sense to him. Each one brought a specific memory to mind, and he felt his face pale when he realized what they were. Each one was a person he had killed, with different traits of other victims of his flickering across their bodies. A voice of earth-shattering volume that seemed to be a culmination of hundreds of smaller ones bellowed out "Time for payback!"

The many figures started to walk towards him, making deliberate and angered looking movements. Nathan got ready to fight, but quickly realized that he would be easily outmatched. One of them had managed to keep him off easily, there were far more than he could hope to manage fighting.

He turned his back and started to run. It was a dream, yes, but that didn't mean that it would hurt any less if he got beaten. The snow beneath his feet deepened, making it progressively harder to run. He looked over his shoulder, hoping that he had put enough distance between himself and the strange creatures that he would be able to get away. Such luck didn't seem to be his though, and they were directly behind him.

Nathan was hoisted out of the snow by what felt like many rough hands, his feet dangling about half a foot above the ground. He kicked and struggled against the hands that held him, but they didn't give. One of the hands delivered a rough strike on his back, and suddenly Nathan was back in the library. He flailed for a few moments before realizing that he had woken up.

Elsa was kneeling down next to him, her eyes wide in surprise. Nathan stopped struggling against enemies who were no longer there and took a deep breath. He looked to Elsa and asked "What's going on?"

Elsa's eyes flicked to the floor awkwardly and said "You… you talk in your sleep." Nathan raised an eyebrow and asked "Really? What did I say?" Elsa simply looked at Nathan for a few seconds before rushing towards him and wrapping her arms around him. He didn't know what she was doing, but decided to hug her back, asking again "What did I say?"

Elsa leaned back, and Nathan saw tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry" she said "I had no idea you felt… I don't want you going out any more. You shouldn't have to kill for me." Nathan gave her a confused look before shaking his head and saying "Wait, wait, what?" Elsa shook her head, tears still coming from her face and went quickly towards the door.

Nathan called after her, but she didn't respond. The door closed behind her. Nathan let his back down against the seat, not sure what had just happened. Whatever he had said in his sleep, it must've been rather meaningful to elicit such a reaction. He tried to get back up, but quickly gave up. His body had settled, and wouldn't move well again until he got enough sleep. He let himself fall back asleep, resigning himself to it. He needed sleep.

* * *

Author's Note:  
Again, I apologive for the last chapter being so short.

Thanks for reading, Review, do whatever, you know. Thanks!


	16. Chapter 16

When Nathan next awoke, something was pushing lightly against his shoulder and whispering in a soft voice. As first he didn't know what it was saying, but gradually the voice came into focus, and he could make out "-Nathan, come on. I've got food, and you've got to be hungry." His eyes cracked open, and he saw the blurred form of Anna a few feet away from him, holding a tray of something. It smelled good, and Nathan was hungry, so he pushed himself up into a sitting position.

A blanket slid off of him, and he wondered where it had come from. Anna must have seen his look and said before he asked the question "You were shivering, so I brought you a blanket. Here." She handed a tray of food to him, and he took it, looking over what was provided. There was a bowl of hot soup, a few pieces of meat, and a potato. He dug in eagerly, going for the meat first. Anna watched him eat for a while before she started to giggle. Nathan looked at her out of the corner of his eye as he ate, but didn't stop. He hadn't realized just how hungry he was.

The food was systematically devoured, and when it was all gone Nathan looked back up to Anna expectantly, waiting for her to either say something about recent events or tell him why she was laughing. She appeared to pick up on the hint, and started trying to suppress her laughter. "I'm… I'm sorry, just give me a minute." Nathan rolled his eyes. After several seconds of Anna struggling and failing to contain herself, Nathan asked "What is so funny?"

Anna made a few wild gestures towards his head, and he brought a hand to his scalp. He felt a large tuft of hair sticking up above the rest at a strange angle. He flattened it roughly, pushing it back down with the palm of his hand. This helped Anna to get herself under control, and she eventually coughed the rest of her laughter away and straightened herself, taking a seat across from Nathan.

Now, assuming that she was ready to converse like a normal human being, Nathan said "So, I hear that I talk in my sleep. I must say some pretty interesting things, because Elsa doesn't want me killing anymore. You wouldn't happen to know what I said, would you?"

Anna looked down towards the floor, the smile fading from her face. "No, I wasn't there and Elsa wouldn't tell me. If I had to guess, I would say that you probably said something about killing people. Have you been having any…I don't know, feelings about it?" Nathan thought. He had, but none that he would think enough to warrant stopping his lethal tactics. He had to admit to himself that he felt guilt over the rather large number of people he had killed back at the fort, but he somehow doubted that this caused him much distress. Sure, they had been mostly innocent, but he had killed many people before them, and was sure that he would kill many after. There was no deep meaning to killing, at least not to him.

He shook his head. "Nothing that might trouble me into trauma. I had a nightmare a while ago, but I doubt that it's really related." Anna furrowed her brow as she thought. "I don't know, maybe you were saying stuff that wasn't true? You were asleep after all, it might have just been stuff from your dream." Nathan didn't feel the need to tell her that the nightmare had been him being attacked by shifting images of the people he had killed. Somehow it seemed that telling her would not have any positive effects.

He nodded and said "Maybe so. Anyways, how's Elsa doing? Is this hitting her as hard as it seemed it was when she was here?" Anna started rubbing her hands together nervously. "Oh, uh, about that…"

Before she finished talking, Nathan shifted his position and noticed something missing. A resistance that was normally there was now gone. His hand flew to his waist and grabbed for the hilt of his blade, and found nothing. Nathan looked at Anna for an explanation, and found her looking very hesitantly from the spot the weapon would normally be located to his face with rapid eye movements. He slid his legs off the side of the cushioned furniture he was laying on and made to stand.

Anna jumped up from her seat and put a hand on Nathan's shoulder, saying "Oh, no! You need to stay still as much as possible! If you want to go somewhere I can help you, or we can get-" Nathan cut her off by taking a sudden hold of her arm and pulling her down, using the resistance to pull himself to his feet. Anna was thrown onto the furniture with a startled gasp, but the cushioning prevented this from causing any damage.

Now on his feet, Nathan started to walk towards the door. Muscles cried out in protest, but Nathan ignored the pain as he walked towards the door. Anna flung herself back to her feet and started to walk beside him, but didn't attempt to stop him this time. "Nathan" she said in a pleading voice "you need to rest! If you keep getting up and doing things, you'll never heal!" Nathan responded by waving a hand dismissively and saying "I really doubt that this little excursion is going to aggravate my injuries too badly. I'm more than willing to take the consequences of a little walk anyways. Come on, maybe if you come with me it'll be easier, and I'll have less of a chance of hurting myself."

Anna bit her lip. Nathan wasn't supposed to be going anywhere, Elsa had told her that, but she doubted that she could stop Nathan, and if he got hurt than Elsa would probably blame her. She sighed and nodded, saying "Alright, fine. You have to promise not to tell Elsa though." Nathan rolled his eyes and nodded, saying "Fine, I Won't."

The two walked side by side for a few seconds before Nathan reached the door and started to pull. At first the pain from the straining muscles was tolerable, than a bullet wound somewhere on the inside of his arm blazed white hot. He let go of the door, only able to kick a foot out in front of the door to stop it from closing. Anna made to help him, but he took care of it, sliding the door the rest of the way with one foot. It didn't cause him any less pain in his leg than he had gotten in his arm, but the door opened regardless.

Nathan walked through, Anna following, and looked around the hall. It was empty, and yellowing rays of weak sunlight were streaming through the windows. It was dusk. Nathan walked to the center of the hall before reaching to his power experimentally. He was happy when he found almost a full pool of energy waiting for him to use. He reached into it without hesitation, and cast shadow sense. The building around him became far more detailed as every shadow within range started to become detectable. His hairs stood on end as his awareness expanded.

In spite of his advantage of shadow sense, he didn't know what he was looking for exactly. He wanted his sword back, but where it was he had no idea. It could be guarded, it might not be. He let a sigh of frustration hiss through his teeth as his hands went idly to one of the many pockets that he adorned himself with. His fingers slipped inside one, and found nothing. His frustrated imitation of a snake grew louder with each pocket he checked, each time finding absolutely nothing. His money, his crossbow, his bolts, the small knives he used for various thievery, and…

His hissing stopped suddenly as he felt around each pocket in quick succession, making sure that he had not skipped over one. Then, as the last one was checked, and he found nothing, his face darkened. Elsa had certainly gone too far. Taking his weapons was one thing, but his runes and his bone charms? Another matter entirely. He wasn't out of control about the matter, at least not yet, and saw that it was possible the objects had simply been removed from his person, and not really confiscated.

He looked over to Anna and said "Alright, we're going to my room. Do you know what Elsa did with my stuff?" Anna shook her head, and Nathan started walking. His pace was slow in comparison to how he normally walked, but given the circumstances it was something of a wonder he was walking at all. He was egged on by the thought that he might stand to gain from the exertion one of his own bone charms back, one that might hasten his recovery. His pace quickened, and he pushed himself harder, ignoring the various protests coming from every part of his body.

It was when he reached the stairs that he recalled the fact that he had a concussion. His foot fell against the wood with slightly more force than he had meant it to, and his vision started to swim, a high pitch ringing starting to fill his ears. He put a hand to his temple and groaned as the ringing grew louder. He started to feel his balance go, and knelt down, placing one hand on the step above him to try and keep steady.

Anna was quick to come to his aid, bending over him and saying something masked by the still very loud ringing that was continuing to grow louder. After a few seconds it reached a crescendo, and started to fade. Nathan held a hand up to Anna so that she would stop talking, and shook his head in hopes of clearing the rest of the pain out. It worked to a limited degree, but he found his neck quite sore as well. He blinked a few times, bringing the world back into focus, and stood, looking over at Anna. "Maybe it would be a good idea to hurry up." he said in an almost joking voice. Anna gave him a worried look in response and said "Maybe we should take it a little slower instead. Can you just tell me what you want, and I go get it?"

Nathan shook his head and replied "You wouldn't know what you were looking for. The only two people in the castle are me and Elsa, and well, I doubt Elsa would be too happy to oblige my request right now." Anna gave him a somewhat frustrated look, but kept quiet. Nathan thought as he continued to walk down the stairs, however, and said about halfway down the stairs "Perhaps you could do something to help me, though. You don't know where any of my stuff is, but do you think you could find it?" Anna shrugged, and Nathan continued "I want you to find my blade and my crossbow. If they are in the same place, I'd be willing to wager that the rest of my stuff will be there to. You up for it?"

He knew from the look that came across her face that he had phrased the question correctly. Making it sound like some kind of mission made Anna eager to undertake the task. He guessed that she wanted to show him that she was a capable person, but the reason she accepted hardly mattered to him. She nodded and said "Yeah! I can do that!" in a voice almost as high pitched as the concussion ringing before coughing awkwardly and saying "I mean, uh, sure, yeah, I could probably manage."

He grinned at her as she shuffled, still somewhat uncomfortable with her slipup. He looked down the stairs, judging the distance he had left, before turning back to Anna and saying "You know, I could probably make the rest of the way on my own. You don't need to watch over me like this."

Anna looked at him suspiciously and said "But… you're hurt. I can't just let you walk around how you are. What if you get even more hurt? What if you fall down again? Then I wouldn't be able to help you." Nathan rolled his eyes and said "I'm not some old man, Anna. If I fall down I can blink back to my feet, or at very worse call out for help."

Anna thought for a moment before sighing and saying "Alright, fine. Just be careful, ok?" Nathan gave her an innocent smile and said "When am I not careful?" Anna's only response was to roll her eyes exasperatedly and cross her arms. Nathan laughed and said "Alright, you go in your scavenger hunt, and I'll go on mine. We can meet up after we're done somewhere. Good?" Anna nodded her understanding, and the two split up. Nathan going down the stairs, and Anna going back up.

Nathan put most of his weight on the railing and slid down, using his feet only to guide his progress. The air whistled past his ears only for a second before he was forced to slow himself and dismount the rail to avoid smashing into the ground. His feet hit the ground with a thud, and he cringed, waiting to see if another wave of pain would result from the impact. Nothing was forthcoming, so he breathed a sigh of relief and continued walking.

The remainder of his journey passed quickly, with no further incidents occurring along the way. He got to the door that he called his own, and noted that it was ajar. He was always sure to close it when he left, and even to lock it. Someone other than his had opened the door.

He pushed it open with one hand and peeked in. The room was void of people, and everything else seemed to be in order, exactly the way he had left it. At least, as far as he could tell. It was all as close as he could remember it, his bed was made, his closet was closed, and his footlocker was still firmly locked. Before assuming that nothing had been touched or taken, he went digging gin his pockets for the key. He was relieved to find that it was still in his possession.

He quickly removed the key from his pocket and descended upon his footlocker, expecting a rune to be within. He turned the key and popped the lid open, looking inside. The wooden bottom of the container starred up at him, surrendering no secrets. Nathan was about to react with anger when he remembered that he had taken the rune with him to the battle. He also realized that that meant the rune was just as stolen as it would have been otherwise. He took a deep breath, keeping a level head. Anger would solve very little in a situation like this.

He turned his attention to the drawers behind him. They looked alright, but one could never be too sure about these things. He stepped over and knelt down, taking a hold of the handle and pulling on it experimentally. It jostled around slightly, but the lock held it firmly closed. He took the key and inserted it into the lock. With a twist and a pull, the drawer was open, and a small pile of bone charms sat looking Nathan in the face. He breathed a sigh of relief and started digging through the pile, searching for the charm that he had become very familiar with around a month ago. He found it after some searching, and hurriedly clipped it onto his chest. Another wave of pain started to build behind his eyes, and he groaned and started to dig through the pile again, looking for the other charm he had used. He found it just as the ringing started and clutched it to his forehead forcefully.

The ringing came, but was far duller than it had been last time. Nathan cringed and waited for the feeling to pass. It did, and after it was gone he stood, clipping the charm to his chest and pushing the drawer closed with his foot. He turned to leave, hoping to possibly catch up with Anna, but stopped as he noticed something that hadn't been there before.

Elsa was standing in the doorway, with Lee behind her. Elsa was looking at his with sad eyes, and Lee looked worried. Nathan raised an eyebrow at the two before saying "Ah…can I…help you?"

Elsa looked him up and down, making a weak gesture at his limbs and saying "You shouldn't be up. You're hurt." Nathan's response was to nod and say "Yes, I suppose I am. You know me, though, I'm restless. I'd go crazy if I was just laying around doing nothing, especially with so much to do." Elsa looked down, averting her eyes. "Nathan, about that…"

She took a few steps into the room, taking a seat on the side of the bed. "I wanted to talk to you about that." She motioned for him to sit next to her. He did, and she looked deep into his eyes, like she was looking for something. Nathan tried to return this gaze, but found himself distracted by Lee, who was still standing in the doorway. Elsa noticed, and motioned for Lee to go. She did, but Nathan could tell that she was still just outside of his sight. Elsa continued to stare into him for a minute before putting and hand on his chest and looking down, saying "I'm sorry… for everything that I've asked of you, and everything that happened because of it. I just want things to be good."

Nathan responded to this by taking her hand off of his chest and into his palm, saying "I don't know exactly what I said while I was asleep, but I would urge you to take the words of a sleeping man with about a fistful of salt. Any number of things might influence someone's dreams."

Elsa shook her head and said "No, you don't understand! You said that… that you wanted to be done with killing people, and with violence, and that you wanted to just settle down." Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me if I sound a bit callus, but I don't really care about killing. Everyone gets killed eventually, so if I don't do it, someone else will. That's never really been much of an issue for me."

Elsa gave him a sad look and shook her head again, a look of mild befuddlement on her face. "How can you do that? I… I don't mean to offend you, but how can you be so…casual about it?" Nathan laughed slightly and said "If you're asking for lessons, I'm afraid that I'm not going to give them. I don't think that they would do you any good."

There was a silence between the two for several more seconds before Nathan made a dismissive gesture and asked "So, could I get my stuff back? I'm sure I don't need to tell you that I have a little bit of an issue not having it with me. I should hope that after everything that had happened that you should trust me enough to allow me my weapons."

Elsa gave a weak smile and nodded, saying "I'll get them back to you. I'm sorry for taking them. I just thought…" her voice tapered off, and her hands came together nervously. Nathan wanted to feel annoyed at her for taking his equipment, but she looked so hesitant.

He stepped forward and made a gesture towards the door, guiding her out while saying "Come on. We can talk about it while we walk, right?"

Elsa nodded, and both exited the room, Nathan making sure to close the door behind him. They passed Lee on the way, and she started to walk behind them, obviously not wanting to interrupt.

* * *

Author's Thing:

New chapter. Yaaay.

There were no reviews on the last chapter, and that made me kind of sad. If you read, just leave a little thing, I really do read all of them, I promise.


	17. Chapter 17

Anna hugged up against the wall, moving slowly and trying to make her steps create as little noise as possible. She tried to remember the things that Lee had shown her about being quiet and stealthy. She kept her weight light and ready to move. She heard footsteps coming towards her from around the corner, and stopped, looking around for somewhere to hide. Her eyes fell on the heavy curtains hanging over the large windows to her right, and she quickly moved towards them, slipping behind them in one surprisingly fluid motion.

Anna held her breath as the footsteps drew closer and closer. A bead of sweat started to roll down the side of her face. The tension was almost unbelievable. The steps continued to grow closer and louder, until she was certain that whoever it was out there was only a foot away from her. She sucked in a deep breath slowly, and held it in as tightly as she could. The footsteps stopped for a brief instant, and Anna was honestly afraid of her heart beating so loud that whoever was out there would hear it.

A nonchalant voice spoke, saying "Hello, Princess Anna." Before continuing to walk away. Anna let out her massive breath, looking forward at the curtain with a stunned expression. Had she really been that obvious? What made her that way?

Some mild annoyance came over her, and she swatted the curtain away from her and walked out from behind it. A servant was walking away from her and, though she couldn't see his face, she could tell that he was smiling. She couldn't help but feel a little offended at that. The urge to do something to get back at the guy was strong. She brought her hand up, ready to do something minor, like throw a snowball at him or something, but she stopped herself. She didn't need to do it, and it would only delay her anyways. She was on a mission.

She had asked one of the guards roaming the hallways where Nathan's gear had been stored, and he had told her. She had been slightly surprised by this, but quickly realized that there was a very obvious reason that he had done it. She felt like a fool, of course, but had quickly recovered and walked away. Now all she had to do was get into the room and somehow get the gear for herself. She could probably just ask for it, but that seemed so boring. She much preferred something with a little more flair.

Lee had been showing her odds and ends of what Nathan taught her, and she was feeling somewhat eager to prove to herself, Lee, and Nathan that she could pull the same kind of stuff of that they did. Though, she did suppose that she was going a little overboard with it. All she really needed to do was to get the stuff and get back to Nathan. If she was able to do that without being seen or suspected, than that would be the icing on the cake.

She kept walking, hoping that there wouldn't be many people around the armory so that her task would be just a little bit easier. It wasn't long before she peeked around the corner and came upon the hall she had been looking for. Her shoulders dropped and she pouted slightly as she saw that there were indeed more guards posted than normal around the room. Most had stony looks of determination, likely something that they had to practice at holding all day, but there were a few slack jawed and tired looking individuals among them. She knew from what Lee had told her that those were the ones who would be quick to dismiss something, an example the girl had given was that if she knocked something over, they would walk over to investigate, and if they found nothing, quickly leave.

Not that that was going to real help her at all. She wasn't really planning on sneaking into the room now. There was the possibility that she could get ahold of Nathan's property without getting caught with it. She wondered what would happen if she were just to walk straight into the room and take the equipment without even saying a word. It was likely that no one would stop her, but Elsa would undoubtedly be advised. She took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself for what would inevitably be something of an event.

With one final deep breath for luck, she stepped around the corner and approached the guards. As soon as she came into view, all of their postures straightened, even those she had thought fully at attention. A few of the newer-looking guards actually looked like they were quaking slightly. She couldn't help but smile at that. The very idea that someone would be afraid of someone like her was amusing to say the least.

She walked in front of the guards directly to the left and right of the door. They saluted gruffly, and she was quick to say "At ease." In a somewhat more timid tone that she would've liked. Their hands dropped back down to their sides, and Anna said in a sweet voice "Do you think I could get in there?" while pointing at the door.

The mad looked her dead in the face, an eyebrow on his face raised, and he looked from her to the door, saying "Is there… any particular reason, your Majesty? Something in particular you are looking for, or is this an inspection? We weren't notified, but I assure you that-" Anna cut him off, feeling bad about doing so, but not seeing any other way to get a word in and speed this somewhat timed task. "Actually, I don't need anyone to go in with me. I just want to…um…look around."

The man regarded her even more suspiciously, casting an unsure look to the guard on the other side of the door. He gave a miniscule shrug, and the man sighed. "I suppose you could go in, your Majesty, only I really must implore you to be cautious. The things in there are not-" Anna cut him off again, felling significantly less bad this time. "Yes, they aren't toys. I am aware. I wouldn't have expected that to change from the last time I got this lecture. Now can I go in, please?"

The man gave a small bow and turned, giving the man beside him another unsure look as he did so. A ring of keys was pulled from his belt, and after a short wait, the lock clicked and the door was swung inward, revealing the somewhat oppressive looking room. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all made of stone tiles, and a few lamps on the walls were the only sources of light that cut through the dark that seemed to flood the room. Anna nodded thanks to the man and walked in, not wanting to appear hesitant. She also pulled the door with her as she went in, not closing the door, but leaving a sliver of room between it and its frame.

That accomplished, Anna turned back to the room's interior taking in what it actually held inside. Rows of swords on one side, all the same make and with very few identifying features, lined the right wall, and all along the left were rifles, barrels of powder and shot under and to the sides of these racks. She paid little attention to those weapons though, as her target was a specific set. That was another thing that Lee had told her: to stay focused on your goal. If you set out to do one thing, than that one thing was all that you really had to worry about. She was only here for Nathan's equipment.

She looked around the room, a sense of urgency starting to creep into her mind. The link with Elsa that she shared started to change, and she knew that something was happening with Elsa. Something was changing her mood very quickly. She didn't pause to interpret what this was, she thought she could guess. The guard whom she had asked where Nathan's gear would be had probably just told her sister that she had asked. Now Elsa was sure to be on her way after her. She hoped that she would be able to get Nathan's gear to him before her sister caught her. That would make a rather awkward situation.

There was no obvious place that Nathan's gear would be. She had held hopes that it would be prominently displayed on some kind of pedestal in the middle of the room, but upon review she supposed that that hope was somewhat unrealistic. Instead, there were several chests around the room, and each had a large and very solid looking padlock on its front. This would have discouraged her, if she hadn't already picked locks before. A smile came across her face as the opportunity to use her new ability arose again. She knelt down to the nearest chest and put a finger to the lock, using her powers to make a thin and spidery formation jet off her fingertip and extend into the keyhole.

She clenched her jaw and bit her tongue, trying to control the ice as tightly as possible. It was difficult to do, keeping the ice expanding only in ways that she wanted and preventing it from spiraling out of control. She knew that Elsa was now probably suspicious of her, as her sister would be able to tell that she was using her powers. This sped her actions, and it wasn't very long until the lock gave a thick click, and the lid to the chest popped open. She eagerly threw the lid up and gazed inside.

An organized pile of pistols gazed back at her, as if waiting to be used. They weren't what she was looking for, though, and she disappointedly let the lid fall back down. She realized too late that she still needed to be quiet, and the metal trim of the top collided with the rest of the chest with a loud crash. She recoiled from the chest, jumping back to her feet and turning preemptively to the door in case anyone was going to react. She was glad that she did when the door opened slightly, and he guard at the door peeked in, saying "Is everything alright in here, your Majesty?"

She nodded earnestly and said "Yes, I'm fine. No ned to worry about anything in here!" The guard glanced around the room, looking for any signs of damage, than leaned back out of the room, putting the door back to the position it had been in before and turning his attention back out to the hall.

Anna felt her cheeks flare red. That was stupid. She should've been more careful. She turned back to the room, looking over the rest of the chests. She doubted that she had enough time to check through all of them, and even if she did there was a good chance that the guards would look in again and see what she was doing. If she wanted to find Nathan's stuff, she would have to find a better way to do it.

She walked to the next chest and knocked her knuckles against the wood, trying to see if she could determine its contents. The hollow knock went rolling slowly though the room, reverberating off of the stone tiles. The sound didn't tell Anna anything, and she sighed an almost defeated sigh. If she had to try going through every box, she would, but she would probably run out of time before then. She gave the room one final onceover to be sure that she had not missed anything. Nothing more revealed itself, and with hopes that she would pick the correct one, she knelt down in front of a randomly picked one, and started to pick it.

This one seemed much more complicated than the other one, and took longer to unlock. The delay it created only added up to about a minute though, and she could tell that Elsa was still not focused entirely on her. There was something else holding her attention. What it was, Anna wasn't sure, but it created a feeling of warmth and comfort. Anna felt the urge to try and see what it was, but reminded herself that her sister liked her privacy. She didn't need to go prying into her personal business like that anyways, she already had more than enough to focus on. The lid was lifted, and she breathed a sigh of relief when her eyes fell on its contents.

Nathan's blade, crossbow, a wide array of smaller knives and weapons, as well as the bone plates that unsettled Anna so much all sat at the bottom of the chest. She hurriedly reached for them and started digging them out onto the floor, stopping just before she dropped Nathan's blade and carefully setting it quietly. After the contents had been emptied, she looked around for a way to carry them. The idea to use the chest occurred to her, but she very much doubted that she had the strength to carry such a thing. This didn't daunt her effort, though, and she bent over, wrapping her arms as far around the thing as she could and straining to stand.

Her fingers felt like they were about to snap off, and she stopped trying. The chest hadn't so much as tilted. With that option eliminated, she looked around the room again, this time for anything that she could use to carry the items while hiding enough of their shape to let her past the guards without being questioned. Unfortunately for her, things like bags or sacks large enough to carry the wide array of dangerous items seemed to be in short supply.

A different idea occurred to her. There were belts with things like holsters around the room. If she could get those to work, than there would be no problem in transporting the objects. Plus it would have the added bonus of letting her know how Nathan felt, walking around with the numerous things designed almost exclusively to hurt people. She imagined that being a walking arsenal like that must carry with it some feeling of superiority, even if he never let it show.

A smile coming across her face, she grabbed several of the belts and went to work. It was difficult, as she quickly found that having multiple belts on one's waist was a difficult thing to do and retain either the same levels of comfort or mobility, so she thought of how Nathan did it. He had bandoleers across his chest. A bandoleer was basically a belt, and although she didn't have the numerous pockets that he did, she could use holsters for that. There were plenty around the room, and as she returned them afterwards she knew there wouldn't be any problem.

A few minutes later, Anna wished that she had a mirror. There were four belts in total, two across her waist and two across her chest. The two across her waist were holding the array of knives, as well as the crossbow and sword. The two that crossed her chest were occupied by the many bolts for the crossbow that he had, as well as his other trinkets, burned bone and the like.

She was surprised more by the weight of the array than anything. She had taken on quite a bit of weight for only carrying what she considered to be small items. How Nathan carried this weight every day, she didn't know. He must've hidden an impressive physique under the thick clothing and armor. She couldn't help but wonder why briefly. If she were that strong, she would show it at every opportunity. Then she remembered that she was talking about Nathan, possibly the most determined anti-social since her sister.

She was glad, tough, to find that she had been correct about the feeling of superiority. She felt like she was ready to deal with anything, in spite of having not the slightest clue as to how to actually use any of the gear that she had covered herself with. She took a few steps towards the door, swayed uncertainly under the foreign weight, and continued to walk. It was obviously going to keep a little more effort to stay balanced, something that she wasn't phenomenal at anyways, but she was confident that she could do it.

She walked forward again and pushed her way through the door, trying very hard not to look to either side at the guards who would no doubt be completely befuddled. In her excitement to try putting the gear on, she had somewhat forgotten the want for subtly, but that was alright, she hadn't needed it anyways.

One of the guards started to speak, saying "Princess, what the-" but she cut him off, saying only "No time to explain. Royal business." in as neutral a voice as she could manage. It was difficult, because she was fighting with both the urge to shrink back from what she could practically feel was a judging stare, and to look him dead in the eye, inspired by the confidence that the equipment awarded her. What she did as a result was to stare straight ahead and walk quickly, blushing as she went.

She rounded the corner, praying that the guards would at least have enough decency to keep their muttering quiet enough that she couldn't hear them. Curiosity got the better of her, unfortunately, and she paused to listen. Nothing. It seemed that her odd behavior had left the men utterly speechless. She chose to take that as a compliment to what was now certainly an ominous profile. She thought she knew the answer to whether or not that was the actual reason, but preferred not to think about it.

She kept walking, confident now that she would beat Elsa to Nathan. She hadn't exactly been the most expedient she had ever been in her life, but she had made good time considering what she had had to do.

She turned the corner leading to one of the main hallways of the first floor, and stopped dead in her tracks, standing stock still and watching in horror as the sight in front of her unfolded. Nathan and Elsa were walking towards her, both looking in her direction.

She quickly looked around for anyplace she could hide, but quickly concluded that there was nowhere she could go. All that she could do was to stand and wait. Nathan was the first to really see her. His eyes focused on her, and his mouth immediately curled into a wry smile, and he looked away from her back at Elsa, obviously trying not to laugh. This attracted Elsa's attention, and she looked over at him, questioningly, before her eyes drifted over to her sister. Her hand quickly went to her mouth, and she rushed towards Anna, saying "Oh, Anna, what are you doing?"

Anna stood still, trying to come up with an excuse. None came to her mind, and she shrugged her shoulders hoping that they just wouldn't ask about it. Shrugging, however, seemed to be a bad idea, as when she did so, the multitude of pockets, belts, and holsters all tilted, and the belts around her waist loosened, falling to the floor. The rest of the things, knives, bolts, and runes, were dumped out into a pile around her feet. She tried not to look down, dreading the possibility that one of the knives might have stuck itself in her. She didn't feel anything though, and cracked one eye open, peering down.

A sigh of relief exited her chest as she saw that she was, in fact, un-punctured. Elsa had been about to touch her, but now held her hands at a safe distance to avoid upsetting any other precariously positioned objects that might decide to spill themselves out onto the floor. Nathan seemed to have gotten his laughter under control, and approached the pile with a smirk on his face. Anna held up a hand and bend over, starting to pick the items up one at a time and saying "No, no, don't worry, I'll get it!"

Nathan started to bend over, reaching for a few of the items, but stopped as he winced in pain. He straightened back up and nodded, saying "Just hand them to me then." Anna did as she was told, and Elsa watched on, a confused expression on her face. "What were you trying to do with all this?" she asked, gesturing to both the pile and the belts. Anna again felt her cheeks blaze red, and she said "Well… I was, uh, trying to bring Nathan his stuff and… well, do you think you could carry all this stuff without a few extra pockets?" She made a gesture towards Nathan as she handed him a bundle of crossbow bolts "Now I know why he's got so many pockets."

Nathan took the bolts and pocketed them, nodding. "It's quite a bit to always carry around. You can never have too much storage." Elsa got a concerned look as he said this, and put a hand gently on his shoulder, saying "Are you going to be alright with the weight?"

Anna could see the irritation come across his face. It was a brief look, though, and was quickly replaced by a sure nod. "Yes, I am absolutely sure that I can handle the weight. I've bourn that almost every day of my life. One more won't make much of a difference, I promise you." Elsa took this reassurance with limited faith. Anna knew what she was thinking, just from the look in her eye. He had said that he wasn't going to get hurt too.

Anna pulled the sword from the sheath on the floor and handed the handle off to him. He took it and slid it gracefully into its proper place at his side, and his crossbow was quick to follow, being tucked away in the inside of his jacket. These marked the last of the pile, and Anna looked back up, putting her attention back on Nathan and her sister.

With that, Elsa said "Well, you have everything?" Nathan replied quickly and confidently "Yes" and looked to Anna, saying "Thanks for your help." Elsa's eyes narrowed and she looked at Anna, mouthing the words "You helped him?" Nathan was still looking at her, so she couldn't respond right away, but she didn't think that she would respond at all.

Nathan turned back to Elsa, spreading his arms and asking "So, what now? Not much that I can do myself, but what are you guys going to do? I would imagine that you've got some royal business you've got to attend to. And Anna, you should just go and do…whatever it is that you do." Both girls looked to each other before looking back at him and saying "there's nothing pressing that we need to get to. We could spend some time with you, if you want."

Nathan gave them both a look that was difficult to place. It reminded Anna of when Elsa had been her old antisocial self. Like he wanted to spend time with them, but had a reason not to. After a few moments of thought he shook his head and said "No, you should go and do what you need to do. I wouldn't want to impose. And besides, I have some things that I would like to do on my own." Before Elsa could open her mouth, he added "Nothing strenuous, don't worry."

Elsa took his arm in hers and said "At least let me help you get back to your room." In a stern voice. Nathan put his arms up, feigning surrender, and said "I suppose there isn't much I can do about that one, is there?"

Elsa smiled and shook her head. The two of them started walking down the hall, Elsa trying to get Nathan to put more of his own weight on her, and Nathan stubbornly carrying himself.

* * *

Author's Note:

And so ends the story of Anna's attempt to become a Final Fantasy character.

So leave a review, tell what you thought. The usual. Thanks!


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